Judicial Watch Sues Obama Administration for Records about Citizenship Push

November 5, 2015

Records Withheld on Moving Money from Immigration Security to Alien Citizenship Push

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records related to letters sent by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to current green card holders urging individuals to become naturalized U.S. citizens prior to the 2016 election. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (No. 1:15-cv-01702)).

On May 14, 2015, Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to USCIS asking for the information sent to green card holders urging them to become naturalized citizens prior to the 2016 election. The FOIA request also asked for records of instructions provided to USCIS staff regarding USCIS funding for the project. USCIS acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request on May 19, and legally had 20 days to respond with a document production, or its intent to withhold documents. An extension was granted to July 2. After exhausting all administrative remedies, Judicial Watch filed suit.

In April 2015, President Obama’s “White House Task Force on New Americans,” issued a strategic action plan to help millions of green card holders become U.S. citizens. USCIS is reportedly reallocating vast resources away from the “Electronic Immigration System,” an online immigration account system, to a campaign of letters to all nine million green card holders urging them to naturalize before the 2016 election.

USCIS would normally conduct a criminal and security background investigation of an immigration applicant upon his or her filing for naturalization. This process reportedly has been expedited, reminiscent of Clinton-era “Citizenship USA” program and “lean and light.” The Obama administration’s lax immigration policies already have admitted into the United States a large number of people with documented ties to ISIS and other radical Islamic groups.

As PJ Media reports:

Naturalization plus mobilization is the explicit aim of the DHS “Task Force on New Americans.”

Multiple sources at DHS confirm that political appointees are prioritizing naturalization ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Empirical voting patterns among immigrants from minority communities demonstrate that these new voters will overwhelmingly vote for Democrat candidates. If the empirical rates of support for Democrats continued among these newly naturalized minority voters, Democrats could enjoy an electoral net benefit of millions of new voters in the 2016 presidential election.

“Judicial Watch is looking to uncover the Obama administration’s political prioritization of our immigration system in order to receive votes,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most Americans but the blatant manipulation of our immigration system – at the expense of others – for political gain needs to be exposed for everyone to see.”

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-r...izenship-push/