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Stopping terrorists at the border

By Andrew Leifer
Thursday, April 20, 2006
last updated April 19, 2006 11:32 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While senators beat their chests and blow hot air over reforms for illegal immigrants, the agency that is responsible for administering U.S. immigration policy sits in such a state of crisis that it puts the security of the entire nation at risk.
In their congressional testimony, experts and whistleblowers exposed egregious mismanagement and systemic institutional flaws at the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services which continue to allow terrorists and foreign intelligence agencies to infiltrate the agency and fraudulently gain entry into the United States.

They say D.C. makes you cynical. Now I understand why. The details I heard at the April 6 House Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on Terrorism and Non-Proliferation would shock and dismay even the most optimistic believers in government.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS — formerly the National Immigration Service or NIS, is the agency responsible for authorizing asylum and providing visas and naturalization documents. They are also the first line of defense to ensuring that terrorists do not gain entry into the United States. Before the first witnesses even spoke, Chairman Edward Royce (R-Calif.) rattled off a dearth of problems. USCIS employees have not had the background checks required to access federal security databases and as a result these employees are unable to check immigrant applications against national terrorist lists. Royce said that adjudicators are blindly approving applicants. He cited a March Government Accountability Office report stating that USCIS is extremely backlogged and under-resourced. Ultimately, according to Royce, USCIS was “rigged” to approve immigration benefits without concern for security.

Ranking Democrat Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) chimed in. Pointing to the fact that 40 percent of adjudicators at the agency lack access to criminal or national security databases, Sherman said, “We haven’t even checked the checkers.”

At most House committee hearings it is rare to find all members in attendance. This committee hearing, however was jam-packed and even included a guest. John Culberson (R-Tex.), a fiery fast-talking representative from Houston, sat in on the committee, declaring that the border situation is so bad back in his home state that “Osama’s cousin could walk right in” (one of his nieces did pose for GQ a few months ago). But even Culberson’s harsh words did not seem to prepare the committee for the shock they received from the testimony to follow.

Former 9/11 Commission researcher Janice Kephart was the first witness, emphasizing the importance of USCIS for stopping terrorists. Six of the September 11 hijackers, she said, were found to have used immigration fraud to aid in their terrorist activities. Examples included sham marriages, student visas issued to non-students or fraudulent requests for asylum later allowing them to obtain legal documents within the United States. This wasn’t illegal immigration in the usual sense. This was legal, but fraudulent immigration.

But it was the testimony of Michael J. Maxwell that caused the most stir. Maxwell was a whistle-blower and former director of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS. An experienced law enforcement expert, he spoke softly and gravely in measured tones about the harsh realities of USCIS. He described how his office was undermined by a culture that placed service and the elimination of a backlog above security.

“The integrity of USCIS is corrupted,” Maxwell said. “And at a minimum, USCIS and Department of Homeland Security officials have turned a blind eye.”

USCIS offered incentives including time off, movie tickets and cash bonuses to adjudicators with the fastest processing times.

“Promotions are based on the number of affirmative adjudications,” Maxwell said.

The agency considered itself a “service” agency, not an enforcement agency.

Maxwell described how USCIS cut his investigative staff levels until he had only six specialists to conduct a backlog of 11,000 USCIS employee background checks. Furthermore, he said, he was authorized no more than six staffers to investigate more than 500 allegations of fraud or wrongdoing — some involving espionage or terrorism.

“The system that exists now cannot handle the load that exists now,” Maxwell said.

He claims his concerns went unheeded “all the way up the chain of command.” He alleges that the director of USCIS acknowledged that two foreign intelligence operatives were working from within the agency to help illegal aliens enter the country.

Throughout Maxwell’s testimony, representatives expressed alarm, making multiple distressed comments. One congressman literally hit his hand to his head repeatedly. Ouch. Chairman Royce asked if a recently announced presidential fraud task force would help alleviate the problem. Maxwell replied in the negative.

“The system needs to be re-engineered from the ground up,” he said.

Before Congress tackles the problem of illegal immigrants in this country, first it needs to fix the broken agency that handles the legal ones.

Andrew Leifer is a physics major studying at Stanford in Washington. Have any good D.C. dirt? Email him at Andrew.Leifer@Stanford.edu.