The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general revealed on Monday that as many as 858 immigrants who had pending deportation orders have mistakenly been granted US citizenship and allowed to stay in the country.
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The DHS says that the goal of the report was to determine how effectively fingerprint records are used in the application process for USA citizenship, which track immigration history of applicants.
The report says some 148,000 sets of fingerprints are yet to be digitized into Federal Bureau of Investigation and DHS databases.
Immigrants arrive to Ellis Island for a naturalization ceremony on September 16, 2016 in New York City.
The Department of Homeland Security says the report highlights what has always been a challenge for immigration officials – the fact that old paper-based records containing fingerprints can not be searched electronically.
Citing the IG report released Monday, news website Politico stated that the people had been “ordered to be deported or removed” from the US but instead obtained citizenship.
For example, investigators learned at least three people of these people had obtained clearances to conduct security-sensitive work at airports or at ports and aboard ships. Some of those credentials have been revoked and another two cases are now up for criminal prosecution.
Currently, about 148,000 fingerprint records of foreign nationals from special interest countries – countries that present national security concerns or have a high rate of immigration fraud – who had final deportation orders or who are criminals or fugitives have yet to be digitized, the report said.
DHS said the agency is working to review the cases, add the paper-based fingerprints to the databases, and create a system for immigration officials to evaluate people who’ve been mistakenly granted citizenship. The audit didn’t identify the countries or immigrants by name.
Roth added that DHS has agreed to the recommendations made in the audit and that ICE has plans to “review the eligibility of each naturalized citizen whose fingerprint records reveal a deportation order under a different identity”.
Importantly, he added, individuals involved in fraudulent applications make up a very small percentage of all those who have naturalized. A DHS spokesperson told NBC News that not all the instances involve fraudulent granting of citizenship – some of the applicants were merely “potentially ineligible”, and granted naturalization with incomplete records. “Where the DHS review process finds that naturalization was obtained fraudulently, DHS will appropriately refer the case to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for civil or criminal proceedings, including for denaturalization”. The ceremony marked U.S. Constitution and Citizenship Day, which is September 17.
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A reason for the underplaying of the number may have been the report’s focus, which was whether the US Citizenship and Immigration Services was using digital fingerprints effectively.
