Feds Mistakenly Grant Citizenship to 1,811 Immigrants with Security Concerns - updated
The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants who had pending deportation orders from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birthdates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.
The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth’s auditors said they were all from “special interest countries” – those that present a national security concern for the United States – or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries...
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Number of those wrongly given citizenship higher than initially reported, CNN, September 20, 2016:
On Monday, the Inspector General reported that 858 individuals from "special interest countries" -- meaning countries that are considered to be "of concern to the national security" of the US -- were supposed to have been deported but were instead granted US citizenship.
But the truth is the report is even worse than reported, with more than 1,800 individuals naturalized who should have been deported from the country.
A reason for the underplaying of the number may have been the report's focus, which was whether the US Citizenship and Immigration Services was using digital fingerprints effectively. The Inspector General determined that the agency granted citizenship to 858 individuals who had been ordered deported or removed under another identity but "their digital fingerprint records were not available" during the naturalization process.
But a footnote on page one of the report also states that there were, as of November 2015, an additional 953 individuals about whom the Inspector General couldn't determine if there was a problem with the fingerprint records specifically, but also should have been deported. This other group consisted of members of a slightly broader classification, from countries of concern as well as from neighboring countries where there is a history of fraud.
That amounts to a total of 1,811 individuals granted citizenship who should not have been...