The discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.
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“Incomplete digital fingerprint records hinder adjudicators’ full review of naturalization applications and may lead to USCIS granting the rights and privileges of USA citizenship to those who may be ineligible or may be trying to obtain citizenship fraudulently”, the DHS inspector general’s office said in a statement.
Incomplete digital fingerprint records hinder the full review of naturalization applications and may lead to granting the rights and privileges of USA citizenship to those who may be ineligible or may be trying to obtain citizenship fraudulently.
According to the report, titled “Potentially Ineligible Individuals Have Been Granted U.S. Citizenship Because of Incomplete Fingerprint Records”, those individuals should not have received permanent residency status because, under their true identities, they had been ordered to be removed from the country.
The report stated that as many as 315,000 immigrants with deportation orders do not have their fingerprints on file. Their credentials were revoked after they were identified as having been granted citizenship improperly, Roth said in his report.
Not even the American secret services are not able to help them because FBI’s immigration records are incomplete. DHS says immigration officials are in the process of uploading these files and that officials will review “every file” identified as a case of possible fraud.
The report shines the light on a disorganized and chaotic DHS when it comes to determining who is allowed to enter the country and stay. All came from “special interest” countries, or areas of national security concern, though the report does not specify which countries.
Today, Jake Tapper at CNN reports the 858 number reported yesterday was actually less than half the actual number of immigrants granted citizenship.
The report found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is missing records, too, since immigration officials hadn’t always forwarded fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Office of the United States Attorney has accepted two cases for criminal prosecution, which could lead to denaturalization.
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. Federal databases don’t have the fingerprints of as many as 315,000 immigrants who are fugitive criminals and/or have deportation orders; furthermore, Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn’t even reviewed almost 150,000 of those immigrants’ files to add the fingerprints to the digital record. An additional 26 cases have been declined. Some of those cases will be investigated by the end of the year, the report said.
A fourth migrant is now working as a law enforcement officer.
The individuals slipped through the system because their digital fingerprint records were not in the DHS’s or FBI’s databases, according to the audit.
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The report by the DHS Office of Inspector General was released on September 8.
