February 13, 2003

Official Immigration and Naturalization Service Response to the Federal Indictments for Document Shredding at the California Service Center

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued an official response to the Federal indictment of personnel at the California Service Center charged with shredding as many as 90,000 documents, purportedly to reduce the tremendous backlog.. The indictment alleges that two supervisors, Dawn Randall and Leonel Salazar, ordered low-level workers to destroy the documents, including passports, birth certificates, asylum applications and citizenship papers, during the period of February to April 2002. If you have reason to believe your paperwork was lost as a result of this tragedy you should contact the INS hotline for persons who believe that they may be victims of file shredding: 1 (949) 831-8427.

  INS Official Response (PDF/42 kb, 1 page)