Somebody will be dropping a lot of “my bads” to his or her boss after an internal Homeland Security audit found that at least 858 immigrants were mistakenly granted citizenship from the U.S.
Advertisement
These issues represent a major problem for immigration officials, who are now under probation.
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 warned that when immigrants become naturalized, “these individuals retain numerous rights and privileges of US citizenship, including serving in law enforcement, obtaining a security clearance, and sponsoring other aliens’ entry into the United States”.
Hakim added, “Where the DHS review process finds that naturalization was obtained fraudulently, DHS will appropriately refer the case to the Department of Justice”.
“The FBI repository is also missing records because, in the past, not all records taken during immigration encounters were forwarded to the FBI”, the report read.
Some of the individuals who were wrongly granted citizenship hailed from “countries of concern” and “neighboring countries where there is a history of fraud”. The report also noted that almost 315,000 fingerprints of immigrants with final deportation orders and fugitive criminal records are missing from the database, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has about 148,000 respective immigrants’ files to review in order to add fingerprints to the digital record.
Just two criminal cases have led to immigrants being stripped of their United States citizenship, with prosecutors refusing to renounce 26 others. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General says bad fingerprint records are to blame. ICE has closed 90 investigations and has an additional 32 investigations open.
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.
The OIG report came on the heels of weekend bombings in NY and New Jersey allegedly carried out by Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old USA citizen of Afghan descent.
The report recommends both reviewing and digitizing the outstanding 148,000 files, and having a plan in place for how to handle cases where fraud has been comitted.
He said the Obama administration “certainly takes seriously the consideration that is made in terms of protecting our national security in terms of our immigration system”.
Advertisement
The report noted that the department has concurred with its recommendations and has begun implementing corrective actions.
