SENATORS PLEDGE 1,000 MORE AGENTS FOR BORDER PATROL

Several Senate Republicans pledged Tuesday to overrule the Clinton
administration and add 1,000 new Border Patrol agents next year. In a
hearing to question INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, they accused the
White House of raiding immigration enforcement accounts to fund other
priorities.

"Every indication is that we will put them back in" the budget, said
Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who has been a sharp critic of the
Clinton administration's decision not to seek the 1,000 agents, as
Congress ordered.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who is chairman of the Appropriations
subcommittee that funds the Justice Department and its agencies,
including the Immigration and Naturalization Service, questioned
whether the $600 million sought by the administration to expand its
politically popular cops-on-the-streets program was coming at the
expense of the Border Patrol.

Gregg is "flat-out wrong," said White House spokesman Barry Toiv. "We
found reductions elsewhere in the budget to finance the president's
initiative to put additional police on the streets of our
communities."