At least 858 people from countries that are of concern to the United States’ national security were able to avoid deportation orders – and actually received citizenship – due to incomplete digital fingerprint records, according to a report released Monday.
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OIG recommended U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to fully digitize the fingerprints and that DHS “resolve these cases of naturalized citizens who may have been ineligible”.
The balance sheet was published by the Department of National Security of the United States and suggests that some of the immigrants used fake names and birth dates in order to achieve USA citizenship from the Immigration Service. The DHS Inspector General uncovered the mistake which involved people from “countries of concern to national security” who did not have digital fingerprints on file.
The report showed that once naturalized, the individuals were granted the rights and privileges of American citizenship, such as serving in law enforcement, obtaining security clearance or sponsoring the entry of other immigrants into the US.
The inspector general said some fingerprints have been digitized, but it identified 148,000 aliens who have been ordered deported but whose fingerprints are not in the IDENT system the department uses for its fingerprint checks. One became a law enforcement officer.
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.
Roth’s report said federal prosecutors have accepted two criminal cases that led to the immigrants being stripped of their citizenship.
The report stated that the immigrants used different names and fabricated birthdates to apply for citizenship. The FBI is missing records for its repository of fingerprints because, as the report notes, “not all records taken during immigration encounters were forwarded to the FBI”.
Tapper speculated that the original number had been erroneously reported because of the report’s narrow focus on individuals who were wrongly granted citizenship because their digital fingerprint records could not be found during the naturalization process.
“As a result, USCIS was not made aware of information that may have affected the applicants’ ability to naturalize”, Jim H. Crumpacker, the Homeland Security’s liaison for investigations, said in a memo to the inspector general. The audit didn’t identify the countries or immigrants by name.
Prior to the release of the report, Hakim said, ICE had digitized almost 315,000 records it identified as having potentially missing paper fingerprints.
“The Obama administration must be put on notice that there can be no room for election year politics in matters of homeland security”, she continued.
Their credentials were revoked after they were identified as having been granted citizenship improperly, Roth said in his report.
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In a statement, DHS says an initial review finds in some of these cases, the immigrants ultimately may have qualified for citizenship. DHS officials agreed with the inspector general’s report and said the government is working on implementing changes and corrective actions.
