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"frustrate and hamper [the INS' reform] efforts."  She com-

plained that the deadline was "an idea that is born of

assumptions about a system in the past that wasn't working

effectively."33  Although a diagnosis that the asylum sys-

tem needed surgery may have been accurate at the beginning

of the Clinton administration, the surgery was effectively

performed by the 1995 regulations.  Indeed, the malady that

precipitated the new regulations had been largely cured,

even before the new law took effect,34 making the surgical

procedures called for by the new law redundant and thus

wasteful of limited INS resources.35

Second, the new expedited removal procedures simply are

not adequate for the task.  The most fundamental reason we

grant asylum protection to people fleeing government oppres-

sion is that, otherwise, innocent people will die.  Under

the new law, however, we have undermined that tradition by

creating expedited procedures that increase the likelihood

of returning people to probable danger or death, after

minimal questioning.  The expedited removal procedures

essentially equal capital punishment in a procedural setting

with fewer protections than we afford an ordinary traffic

violator.  Arriving asylum seekers are not given notice of

their rights before the initial screening process in second-

ary inspections, the opportunity to contact family or

friends or to be represented by counsel before the initial

screening interview, the right to appeal a negative credible

fear finding to a judge, or access to in-person interpreta-

tion at any stage of the process.  Moreover, the INS con-

ducts the entire process behind closed doors; it has pre-

vented nongovernmental organizations from observing or

monitoring the new procedures being implemented.

Third, the conditions and circumstances surrounding the

flight of asylum seekers prevent them from being able to

handle the types of matters we would commonly expect other

arriving immigrants to be able to.  Most asylum seekers are

really quite different from the image we may have of them.

One's first thoughts may be of famous asylum seekers--a

Russian ballet dancer or an Iraqi Olympic weight lifter--and

other people who decide to seek asylum in the United States

before leaving their home countries and who are received by

the United States with open arms.  Such high-profile people

may have little difficulty obtaining proper travel docu-

ments, establishing their claims for asylum immediately on

departing an airplane, or filing their political asylum

applications shortly after arriving in the United States.