Pete Sessions
U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) pressed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday following a report that outlined a lack of coordination, information sharing and security prioritization in the nation’s naturalization process.
The report, conducted by the DHS Office of Inspector General, also cited leadership failures resulting in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failing to digitize 148,000 fingerprint records of criminal or fugitive aliens with final deportation orders, which led to the naturalization process failing to root out fraud in at least 1,811 instances.
“(The recent) disturbing report from the Office of the Inspector General shined light on the failure of this administration to effectively enforce our immigration laws,” Sessions, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said. “It is completely unacceptable to fraudulently grant the rights and liberties that come with a U.S. citizenship to 1,800 virtually unknown individuals. We don’t know what countries they are from, we don’t have any of their biometric data, and we simply don’t know anything about these individuals.”
Sessions sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson on Friday questioning whether DHS had expressed a need for more than $5 million that Congress appropriated in 2012 to update the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).
The report also concluded that citizenship had mistakenly been granted to 858 individuals from “special interest countries.”
Sessions requested a complete list of special interest countries, as well as the total number of people mistakenly granted citizenship from each country, in the letter to Johnson.
“This administration’s glaring lack of judgment has made a mockery of our immigration system and jeopardized our national security,” Sessions said. “I will continue to push for answers and hold this administration accountable for their irresponsible actions.”
Sessions also requested an expected date of completion for the digital fingerprint upload, and an explanation for why Operation Janus, a program that worked to identify aliens that had been wrongfully naturalized, has been disabled.
“Given the serious nature of the report’s findings, I strongly urge (Johnson) to be forthright and responsive to this and other congressional inquiries so we can ensure the risk to our national security is minimized and the systemic failures that led to these events are understood and prevented in the future,” Sessions said.