Black added, “It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that this audit follows reports from just last week indicating that the Department of Homeland Security may have withheld data from lawmakers showing a drastically different security situation at the US-Mexico border than what DHS portrays”. The error, it says, was found during an investigation into whether U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been using personal information databases effectively for naturalization applications.
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In a fourth case, an individual is working law enforcement.
The report comes out as authorities are investigating a string of terror-related attacks – bombings in New Jersey and NY, and a stabbing attack in Minnesota – all allegedly committed by immigrants.
The inspector general report could further fuel warnings about immigration security. Their credentials were revoked after they were identified as having been granted citizenship improperly, Roth said in his report.
President Barack Obama’s administration reported deportations for approximately 414,481 undocumented immigrants in the USA in 2014 – which was considered a big drop in deportation rates.
But the problem could be even worse.
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.
The report recommends that DHS complete the review of the 148,000 immigrant files for fingerprint records for those with final deportation orders or criminal histories or who are fugitives, and digitize and upload them into the repository. In other cases, fingerprints taken by immigration officials during the deportation process weren’t forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“This situation created opportunities for individuals to gain the rights and privileges of USA citizenship through fraud”, Roth explained, according to The Daily Caller. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office checks the fingerprint records of applicants to gather information about any other identities they may have used, criminal arrests and convictions, immigration violations, deportations and links to terrorism.
The US government has mistakenly granted citizenship to hundreds of immigrants due to lacking fingerprint records.
To remedy the gap, immigration officials are in the process of uploading fingerprint records.
Failure to digitize these records risks “making naturalization decisions without complete information and, as a result, naturalizing additional individuals who may be ineligible for citizenship or who may be trying to obtain USA citizenship fraudulently”, the report added.
The report does not say the immigrants were all criminals. The Offices of the United States Attorneys accepted two cases but declined 26 others.
The Department of Justice is focusing on reviewing the cases of people who’ve obtained security clearances.
AP reports that a major risk with granting citizenship to people with deportation orders is that it allows them the opportunity to apply for security-sensitive jobs.
At least three immigrants were able to gain aviation or transportation worker credentials, which gives them access to secure areas or vehicles. A fourth person is now a law enforcement official, the audit said, without adding further information.
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An initial review suggests that some of the individuals may have ultimately qualified for citizenship, the Department Of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.
