A new report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General describes how the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) granted citizenship to 858 immigrants who were ordered to be deported or removed.
According to the report, in 2010 the Department of Homeland Security began Operation Janus under the Office of Operations and Coordination (OPS) to “address the issue of aliens from special interest countries receiving immigration benefits after fraudulently changing their identities and concealing their deportation orders.” By 2014, the Operation Janus program had identified and reported to the Inspector General approximately 1,029 individuals who become naturalized U.S. citizens despite, “coming from special interest …show more content…
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) who never properly digitized and uploaded the old fingerprint records after IDENT was introduced in 1994. In 2011, ICE reported approximately 315,000 criminal alien records prior to 1990 had not been uploaded into the IDENT system. The following year, DHS received $5 million from Congress to digitize and upload the remaining files. In total, DHS only got around to uploading 167,000 of those files before running out of funding. Since then, nothing has been done with the remaining 148,000 criminal alien files.
Similarly, the report detailed the FBI database suffered from a database change too. In 1999, the FBI established their digital fingerprint database IAFIS was replaced in by NGI in 2014. Although both the DHS and FBI databases share biometric data, Operation Janus revealed that FBI database NGI does not contain all digital fingerprints from previous INS and ICE actions.
The report states, “ICE officials told us that, in the past, neither INS nor ICE always sent the FBI copies of paper fingerprint cards associated with immigration encounters. According to an official, ICE officers did not always update the information associated with fingerprint records to reflect issuance of final deportation
According to the report, in 2010 the Department of Homeland Security began Operation Janus under the Office of Operations and Coordination (OPS) to “address the issue of aliens from special interest countries receiving immigration benefits after fraudulently changing their identities and concealing their deportation orders.” By 2014, the Operation Janus program had identified and reported to the Inspector General approximately 1,029 individuals who become naturalized U.S. citizens despite, “coming from special interest …show more content…
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) who never properly digitized and uploaded the old fingerprint records after IDENT was introduced in 1994. In 2011, ICE reported approximately 315,000 criminal alien records prior to 1990 had not been uploaded into the IDENT system. The following year, DHS received $5 million from Congress to digitize and upload the remaining files. In total, DHS only got around to uploading 167,000 of those files before running out of funding. Since then, nothing has been done with the remaining 148,000 criminal alien files.
Similarly, the report detailed the FBI database suffered from a database change too. In 1999, the FBI established their digital fingerprint database IAFIS was replaced in by NGI in 2014. Although both the DHS and FBI databases share biometric data, Operation Janus revealed that FBI database NGI does not contain all digital fingerprints from previous INS and ICE actions.
The report states, “ICE officials told us that, in the past, neither INS nor ICE always sent the FBI copies of paper fingerprint cards associated with immigration encounters. According to an official, ICE officers did not always update the information associated with fingerprint records to reflect issuance of final deportation