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IMMIGRATION
Archivist: IRS didn’t follow law
Few consequences Law, flawed system could allow children to stay By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Agency mum when Lois Lerner’s hard drive failed By EILEEN SULLIVAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service did not follow the law when it failed to report the loss of records belonging to a senior IRS executive, the nation’s top archivist told Congress on Tuesday, in the latest development in the congressional probe of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. In June 2011, IRS executive Lois Lerner’s computer crashed, resulting in the loss of records that are sought in investigations into the agency’s actions. At the time, the agency tried to recover Lerner’s records, but with no success. When it was determined later in the summer of 2011 that the records on the hard drive were gone forever, the IRS should have notified the National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Archivist David Ferriero told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But Ferriero learned of the lost records on June 13 when the IRS notified Congress. “Any agency is required to notify us when they realize they have a problem,” Ferriero said. Lerner is at the center of the controversy and has refused to answer questions from Congress, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself. In May, the House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress. She retired from the IRS last fall after having been placed on paid leave. In an effort to determine whether the Obama administration had any knowledge or involvement in the activities of the IRS division that reviews applications for tax-exempt status, lawmakers have sought and received thousands of IRS records — none of which has implicated the White House in the controversy. But when it was revealed that some of the emails sought were unrecoverable, Republicans questioned the timing of the hard drive crash, suggesting key records related to the investigation have conveniently gone missing. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has said that he has seen no evidence anyone committed a crime when the agency lost emails. Pressed by a congressman Tuesday, Ferriero would not state that the IRS broke the law. He would only say that the agency didn’t “follow” the law, referring to the Federal Records Act. In a rare evening hearing before the same committee on Monday, Koskinen said there was no evidence that Lerner intentionally destroyed the missing emails. To the contrary, he said, the IRS went to great lengths trying to retrieve lost documents on Lerner’s computer, even sending it to the agency’s forensic lab. Republicans have said the Obama administration has not been cooperative with Con-
See HARD DRIVE PAGE 9A
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Thousands of immigrant children fleeing poverty and violence in Central America to cross alone into the United States can live in American cities, attend public schools and possibly work here for years without consequences. The chief reasons are an overburdened, deeply flawed
system of immigration courts and a 2002 law intended to protect children’s welfare, an Associated Press investigation finds. Driving the dramatic increases in these immigrants is the recognition throughout Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that children who make the dangerous trip can effectively remain in the U.S. for years before facing even a moderate risk of deportation.
The Obama administration estimates it will catch 90,000 children trying to illegally cross the Mexican border without their parents by the end of the current budget year in September. Last year, the government returned fewer than 2,000 children to their native countries. The administration has asked Congress for $2 billion to spend on the issue. “They almost never go
home,” said Gary Mead, who until last year was director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office responsible for finding and removing immigrants living in the country. “It’s not a process that ultimately ends in easy resolutions or clear-cut resolutions.” The situation is widely perceived as becoming a human-
See CHILDREN
PAGE 9A
RECONSTRUCTION SURGERY
REPAIRING A MISTAKE Cancer mistake patched up By BRUCE SCHREINER ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky medical team has painstakingly repaired the disfiguring injuries to a woman’s face, caused by radiation treatments for a cancer she never had that caused a gaping hole in her cheek and made her an outcast in a former Soviet republic. Lessya Kotelevskaya was recovering Tuesday following the 16-hour surgery the day before at University of Louisville Hospital. Her surgeon, Dr. Jarrod Little, said the procedure to reconstruct her jawbone and cheek went according to plan. “Lessya cannot wait to get back to her normal life,” her cousin, Oleg Sennik, told reporters. The 30-year-old’s life spiraled into tragedy when she was diagnosed with terminal jaw cancer at age 19 in Kazakhstan after she was accidentally elbowed in the face at a basketball game and her jaw became swollen. The damage from radiation treatments made it difficult to eat and talk.
Photo by Bruce Schreiner | AP
Dr. Jarrod Little speaks during a news conference Tuesday, in Louisville, Ky, about the 16-hour surgery he performed to repair damage to the face of Lessya Kotelevskaya. Sennik spent years searching for his younger cousin, and when he found her she was a mere 79 pounds and living in the shadows of life in Kazakhstan, where the Ukrainian native had lived since childhood. By the time she found out the cancer diagnosis was wrong, she had lost her husband and their clothing bou-
tique. She scraped by for years with odd jobs at night so people wouldn’t see her. At one point, she lived in the utility room of a car wash. “She was rejected everywhere she went before,” her cousin said. Sennik brought Kotelevskaya and her young son to live with him last year in
Louisville, where they found medical care to turn around her life. The surgery included removing a leg bone that was conformed into a new jawbone, with the skin becoming the new inside covering of her mouth.
See SURGERY
PAGE 9A
ABORTION RIGHTS
Year after filibuster, backer momentum ebbs By WILL WEISSERT ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — One year after a filibuster attracted national attention and gave them a rare but brief Texas victory, abortion-rights supporters have struggled to recapture momentum in a conservative state where political battles usually don’t go their way. The thousands of orangeclad protesters, who for weeks last summer voiced their opposition to sweeping new abortion restrictions statewide, haven’t mobilized on nearly that scale since. Even Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, who laced up pink sneakers and
stood on the floor of the Senate chamber for more than 12 hours leading the cause, has pivoted to less-divisive campaign talking points as she seeks to woo voters in her uphill bid for governor. “With every movement you have ebbs and flows and peaks and valleys. We’re kind of in a valley now,” said Tiffani Bishop, co-state lead organizer for GetEqual Texas, a gay rights group among the dozens of organizations that mobilized abortion-rights demonstrators last summer. The abortion law later was passed overwhelmingly. Bishop said if there was another filibuster, protesters would return in even great-
er numbers — but since there hasn’t been a subsequent unifying force, “all that momentum has shifted.” Still, that frantic Tuesday night wasn’t all about the filibuster. With the midnight deadline looming on June 25, 2013, Davis’ political soliloquy had been stopped and a law authorizing the restrictions was about to pass when Democratic Sen. Leticia Van de Putte jockeyed with other lawmakers to be heard. “At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male col-
See ABORTION RIGHTS
PAGE 9A
Photo by Eric Gay/file |AP
Members of the gallery cheer and chant June 26, 2013, as the Texas Senate tries to bring an abortion bill to a vote as time expires in Austin.