On the heels of Obama’s promise to greatly increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to settle in the states, the USA government on Monday admitted to granting citizenship to at least 858 immigrants with pending deportation orders who come from countries of concern to national security.
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“USCIS granted USA citizenship to at least 858 individuals ordered deported or removed under another identity when, during the naturalization process, their digital fingerprint records were not in the DHS digital fingerprint repository”, the inspector general said.
Those who obtained citizenship while their fingerprints were missing from the database now have full rights of citizenship and could engage in such activities as becoming law enforcement officers or gaining security clearances, according to the report.
At least 858 individuals “from special interest countries who had been ordered deported or removed under another name” were granted citizenship based on a lag in digital fingerprint data in government databases, a new audit says.
Hakim said Homeland Security has begun reviewing the files identified in the report and has already identified 120 individuals who appear to have committed fraud.
The report also cited at least three cases where previously-deported individuals who were granted citizenship and then obtained clearance for “security-sensitive work at commercial airports or maritime facilities and vessels”.
The OIG recommended that ICE finish uploading the fingerprints it identified into the digital repository and that DHS resolve cases of naturalized citizens who may have been ineligible – proposals DHS spokesman Neema Hakim said in a statement the department was “expeditiously” embracing. Opponents say Obama’s plan to flood the U.S. with unvetted Middle Eastern refugees will afford ISIS and other terrorist organizations further opportunities to embed jihadists in the country.
The FBI’s fingerprints repository dates back to the 1920s, and fingerprints were taken on paper cards up until 1999, at which point they were digitized and made searchable. The audit didn’t identify the countries or immigrants by name.
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. “The safety and security of the homeland must be the overriding objective of our leaders when it comes to our immigration policy”.
The gap in fingerprints was created because older, paper records were never added to fingerprint databases created by both the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1990s.
Several members of Congress criticized the Obama administration Monday in the wake of Roth’s report, though the report suggests that the gaps extend several years earlier than the Obama administration. Roth’s report confirmed that fingerprints for up to 350,000 immigrants now facing deportation or who are fugitive criminals are missing or do not exist. A fourth person is now a law enforcement official, the audit said, without adding further information. ICE, formed in 2003, didn’t even consistently add digital fingerprint records until 2010.
The department will then review the eligibility of the almost 900 naturalised citizens whose fingerprint records reveal they were under a deportation order under another identity.
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Government agencies are working on implementing corrective action, which may include denaturalization. But prosecutors declined another 26 cases.
