phase I. Some say it is not enough and so forth. We heard all of those comments before, you might remember, in phase I, and now we are seeing again some of those. But I think, again, let's look at what is happening.

We have gone, as you know, to allow people to file at any time, not having to wait for the prescribed period. We are generating a lot of campaigns. We are working with other groups, and we encourage all the other nationality, church and other groups to again support us in getting the word out because we all have the same goal. But that is working well and we are pleased with that effort. Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, while that chart is up, could I just ask, is there a number of people who have been approved on that chart in both legalization programs, the regular one and the▬▬ Mr. NELSON. I think that is in the body of our testimony. Mr. BERMAN. OK. Then I will look for it. Thank you.

Mr. NELSON. These are some general overview charts. I believe the committee has been provided copies of these charts in addition to the testimony. But in the testimony we do have a breakdown of those approved to date under phase I.

The other point I was going to make on legalization, the fees received-again I think we need to go back to the intent of the statute. We have collected now, as we say, $287 million or are probably approaching $300 million in fees, and that this, as the Congress intended this program has been and will be fully supported by fees as mandated.

In the agricultural arena, the SAW program, likewise the registration is concluded as November 30, 1988. We are processing those applications. The RAW program-the Replenishment Agricultural Worker program-is, again, moving along. We have now comments received on the proposed regulations. We are reviewing those. We would expect within the next several weeks, certainly by the end of May, to have final RAW regs in place, well in advance of the October time for that to come into effect if there are estimates of shortages by the Secretaries of Labor and Agriculture.

I might again note, Mr. Chairman, because I think it is an important issue not only for this committee but a lot of others, what we have done with the use of preliminary draft regulations. In other words, a three-step process: preliminary draft, then the regular publication, then the final regulation, which has given a lot of opportunity for comment, given us the chance to get the benefit of the opinions out there. It has worked extremely well and I think we have been much better for it, and we hope that concept can be used in many other areas.

Turning to employer sanctions, the program has now been fully implemented, and obviously it is an ongoing program, basically, a three-part strategy. The employer visits, which is something we generated as our own concept as a way to better market this program. We have already in the first year directed and completed 1 million employer contacts. By this coming June, the end of the second year under that cycle, we will have completed a second million, or 2 million contacts. That has worked extremely well.

The purpose of the idea, of course, is to be sure the employers understand the law, what it means, what its purposes are, and that they are in voluntary compliance. We are pleased with what we

are finding. That 67 percent are in voluntary compliance by our findings.

We also on our own established the Office of Employer-Labor Relations. This has worked very well. Again, a tool to work with employers, with organized labor, with community groups and others to be sure that legal workers, U.S. citizens and aliens here lawfully, get into the jobs, not illegal aliens. It is a flip of employer sanctions. Keep the illegal aliens out but to help get legal workers into those jobs. And we are pleased with the results to date and want to see that expanded.

The other aspects of our strategy, of course, are to pursue the investigative leads, the normal type of law enforcement, and then we have also adopted the general administrative plan, which is the random audit process. Those in conjunction with the employer visits have worked very well.

Again, the bottom line is that we have issued a substantial number of warnings. We still use that process where appropriate. But we have also now issued over 1,700 notices of fine, we are proud of the fact. I know this won't always stay the case, but we are pleased that it has over the period of time. We have yet to lose a case of those contested. Not too many have been contested. I think that is due to the fact that they know we are well prepared and they are well documented. Most have been settled, and we are pleased with that. But those that have been tried, we have prevailed, and we think that is due to good work and we certainly intend to keep those standards up.

As I mentioned, the LAW program-Legally Authorized Worker program- which relates to the way of dealing with the problem of getting workers into jobs if there are sometimes but not often shortages. We would ask, and I will say this publicly before this committee and different interest groups here-we would like more help from the different ethnic groups, from organized labor, employer groups and others to work with us, as well as Departments of Labor and other Federal departments, to do more to get legally authorized worker citizens and legal aliens into these jobs. It is something that can help the unemployment situation in certain areas. It certainly reduces welfare dependency. A lot of this relates to disadvantaged. There is a lot more ability to do more with LAW than has been done. We have been the catalyst and we want to continue that.

On criminal aliens-this is one of the key points of IRCA. Of course, it often doesn't get the attention, but that is an area that I don't know that anybody has any problem with the philosophy and the actions. That if an alien comes to this country, particularly illegally, and abuses our system, and particularly gets involved in violent crime or narcotics, that that person, number one, ought to serve any criminal sentence applicable and then ought to be promptly removed from the United States.

We are pleased with the efforts to date in improving the numbers and the whole process there. As noted in the testimony, we have pilot programs with New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami to get better parole information and also to identify and using automated systems to track down criminals that are in the

system to be sure that if they are aliens that we are taking appropriate action.

Also as noted, the INS is a key player in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement program, the OCDEP program. We have over 100 special agents there. Of course, one reason we are there is we have language skills. A lot of aliens are involved in these organized crime activities, and we have a distinct role. Drugs seized through these efforts, through our efforts involved with that is more than $120 million.

The NACAP program-National Alien Criminal Apprehension Program-was fully implemented during 1988, and we doubled our apprehensions over the 1987 figure. We believe that taking vigorous action against criminal aliens by apprehending, detaining and removing them from the country expeditiously will be of considerable benefit to the Nation, and it will be pursued as an agency and administration priority.

Turning to drug enforcement, as noted in the testimony the 1988 drug seizures by the Border Patrol were significantly up over 1987 levels. Some $700 million worth of drugs seized by the Border Patrol. And, as that chart indicates, the number of seizures has gone up dramatically and the value. In 1989, and we are halfway through the year already, we have already doubled the amount of seizures for the same period last year, so this figure will be much higher this year. We are pleased with the efforts that we are doing, the successes, the coordination with the other Federal, State and local officials, and the interrelationship between our major function of enforcing our immigration laws and also being in a position to be a major partner in the war against drugs.

We have been very significant in the ability to use dogs. We have a passive-type dog who reacts to drugs. They also detect people. There are a few figures on this chart. They have been very significant in their role in detecting drugs at checkpoints, at ports of entry, and on the border between the ports of entry.

Another thing where INS is taking a lead and we are proud of that effort and I had an opportunity to brief the drug czar, Bill Bennett, last week-the education efforts that our people in Border Patrol and others put on. Because I think we all realize that the war against drugs goes a great deal beyond the enforcement, and we already in the program that we do, sometimes on spare time, and others have briefed over 600,000 students throughout the United States, mostly in the southwest, on the dangers of drugs. Typically, the briefing is with a drug dog, showing how drugs are seized and learning how law enforcement functions, and then talking about the dangers of drugs and the significant aspects of law enforcement being involved in getting that message out. We are proud to have a lead on that.

As noted, the dogs have also been significant in rescue efforts because they can detect people-people locked in boxcars, some people were trapped in a collapsed building, people have been lost in the desert. So this has been a very important program that ties in with our alien apprehension effort.

The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement program, or the SAVE program, is another major element of IRCA. A great deal of progress has been made in SAVE, in the implementation of

that. And, of course, the concept is very simple and very important. That an illegal alien, who shouldn't be in the country in the first place, should not be drawing benefits such as welfare and employment insurance or otherwise that he is not entitled to under law, and that, of course, is impacting the taxpayers. As we have noted in prior testimony, and we think we are on track with that, there is a potential of saving billions of dollars in improper payments. And, of course, again it is a major deterrent to illegal aliens if they can't come to the United States and get or keep a job or get or keep benefits. All States are now participating in SAVE in varying degrees, and that is I think a very significant accomplishment.

The SAVE database is a very important thing. We now have over 25 million records in the SAVE database that can be accessed. We would suggest to the committee that at a convenient time we schedule with the committee a demonstration of several of these methods, maybe with other computer technology we have generated, about how we can use the touch-tone telephone to access data for the SAVE program, because this could be the forerunner of effective accessing of records for sanctions much as you do when you go to a store with your credit card and they can punch a phone number in or some automatic device.

Border enforcement-in 1988, apprehensions of illegal aliens by the Border Patrol was 969,214. This was down approximately 16 percent from the 1987 level, 43 percent below the 1986 level. Again, as we have stated, certainly the impact of IRCA and particularly employer sanctions is a very key factor. We are seeing even in the last several months continued decline generally in the number of illegal alien apprehensions. So we think it is a good sign. It is still too high. The problem has not gone away. But it is the right sign and we are going to keep watching it carefully.

On the contrary, we have had an increase in number of nonMexican nationals. That is up 19 percent to 41,000 nearly compared to the prior year. So that is a disturbing trend, and that goes into the Central American program that I will come back to in a minute.

On the inspections, through the user fee we were able to inspect some 48 million people at airports and seaports, and we intercepted some 76,000 inadmissible aliens, and that is 15 percent above 1987 intercepts. As you note there, well over 300 and something million at the land border that are inspected. Again, we need to remember the volumes. We are talking about getting up toward 400 million people a year that we are inspecting coming across our borders. I think the fact we have been able to do that effectively and efficiently is a very important thing. We have seen growth there.

In the adjudications program, we have had an increase in 1988 to 2.245 million applications and petitions. That was up slightly from 1987. The important news will be 1989. With the impact of legalization, we expect a very significant increase in petitions in the next year.

Efforts that we are taking, direct mail, use of the service center concept, are very important. And, as I mentioned earlier, the user fee account is critical because this does allow, this examination user fee allow us to retain fees in access of $50 million.

We state in the testimony a number of management improvements. I won't read all of those. I think we, again, are proud of the foundational aspects we have of our management and with the accomplishments. One that gets a lot of attention, not necessarily always accurate, is in the ADP. Again I would suggest to the committee that we give a demonstration at a convenient time of a number of the ADP programs. We can remember back to the Iranian crisis in 1979, the difficulty tracking people. A few years ago we gave a demonstration up here on the Hill of how we could track Libyans and others who were in the country. We can do the same with Iranians and others. I think that is important to see.

We have designed, implemented and operated an array of systems which have now processed more than 1 million legalization applications; and, again, the support for our regional processing facilities, a complex centralized database, document preparation and data capture, and document analysis, are now we think well along. We can always make continued improvements and there are always dollar concerns, but I think we have made some great progress. I would be happy to respond to further inquiries on that. We also have developed new I.D. cards in order to document aliens granted temporary legalization status. I believe the committee has seen those. We would be happy to provide those again. I think it would be good for the committee to see the facility and how those were developed and made in we think a very secure form that, again, could have future use.

Let me turn now to the situation in south Texas. We, of course, testified before on that, so I won't take a lot of time.

I think this chart indicates with each color, orange color and purple color, the asylum applications and also the other aspects, showing, of course, the significant increase we faced last fall in the first year, and now the significant decline, in both applications and also the people being apprehended. The program is working.

While we in early 1988, had 40 or 50 political asylum applications received weekly, that built up to over 1,000 a week. It got as high as 1,200, and had we not taken significant action and that trend had continued, we would have had well over 100,000 asylum requests during 1989. But the efforts we have taken and we testified to have worked well.

This is a plan, of course, to create an effective deterrent to those persons who would manipulate our asylum laws by filing frivolous applications. The consequences of doing nothing, had that been the case, are truly staggering when one considers the millions of economically disadvantaged people within a 2-day drive of our southern border. So the expedited asylum adjudications, the detention, the processing, the increased enforcement, Border Patrol and otherwise, is working. The number of applications is substantially down. Asylum applications have gone from a daily average high of 397 per day during the January-February period to a daily average of 48 during the period of mid-March to mid-April. Similarly, the level of apprehensions, as indicated on the chart, have declined significantly.

So the message that we have, and we are pleased with how it has worked, is that we have to continue our resolve to control our border and that this is being carried back down into Central Amer