Grassley, Johnson Warn of Potential National Security Risks, Political Influence
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson are seeking an explanation for internal Department of Homeland Security communications directing staff to process as many citizenship applications as possible “due to the election year.” The email obtained by the committees indicates that staff are being encouraged to work overtime to process as many N-400 naturalization applications as possible.
Revelations of the apparent push to approve citizenship applications ahead of the November elections comes just days after the department’s Inspector General found that poor management of fingerprint records allowed hundreds of individuals to wrongfully obtain citizenship despite documented risks and deportation orders. Grassley and Johnson sought details from the Obama Administration earlier this week regarding the report.
According to the email sent to adjudicators in the USCIS Houston field office on July 21, “The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of their N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016.” It encouraged staff to work overtime and announces that the office would be opened on weekends to accommodate such overtime work.
In a letter to today to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the chairmen warn that rushing to approve applications will likely further diminish the quality of the vetting process.
“Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications, especially in light of this week’s Office of Inspector General report that found USCIS granted U.S. citizenship to at least 858 individuals from “special interest” countries (i.e. countries that are of concern to the national security of the United States) or countries with high rates of immigration fraud, who had final deportation orders under another identity,” the chairmen wrote in the letter.
The letter discusses how a similar push to expand the number of potential voters before the 1996 election resulted in nearly three times as many approvals of naturalization applications at the expense of national security safeguards. More than 180,000 applications were approved without any fingerprint checks and more than 80,000 were approved even though background checks revealed criminal records. Reports analyzing the 1996 surge indicate that the push was likely politically motivated, and could “provide the Democrats a strategic advantage.”
“We sincerely hope history is not repeating itself,” the chairmen wrote.
In the letter, Grassley and Johnson are asking what steps the department is taking to prevent the processing of citizenship applications for political reasons, and to ensure national security safeguards are properly utilized. They are also requesting an interview with the DHS employee who generated the email in question.
Full text of the Grassley-Johnson letter follows:
September 21, 2016
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable Jeh Johnson
Secretary
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528
Dear Secretary Johnson:
We write to express serious concern about an apparent push by your department to rush the adjudication of naturalization applications before the upcoming presidential election, presumably in an attempt to create as many new citizen voters as possible.
Specifically, we are seeking answers about a copy of an internal agency communication from supervisors at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office asking adjudicators to expedite and even work overtime to adjudicate pending N-400 (naturalization) applications. According to the attached email sent to adjudicators in the USCIS Houston field office on July 21, “The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of their N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016” (emphasis added). The email encourages staff to work overtime to move their cases, almost certainly to the detriment of processing times for other immigration benefit applications, and announces that the office would be opened on weekends to accommodate such overtime work.
Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications, especially in light of this week’s Office of Inspector General report that found USCIS granted U.S. citizenship to at least 858 individuals from “special interest” countries (i.e. countries that are of concern to the national security of the United States) or countries with high rates of immigration fraud, who had final deportation orders under another identity.
Unfortunately, we have been down this road before. In the year preceding the 1996 presidential election the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor agency to USCIS, established the notorious “Citizenship USA” (CUSA) initiative. Previously, the INS had been granting citizenship to 300,000 to 400,000 aliens per year, but under CUSA that increased to 1.1 million cases. The apparent push to naturalize as many aliens as possible in time for them to vote in the election resulted in cut corners that endangered national security and public safety.
For example, a House Judiciary Committee hearing in 2000 revealed that the INS had naturalized more than 180,000 aliens under the CUSA initiative without doing fingerprint checks. In addition, more than 80,000 aliens had fingerprint checks that generated criminal records, but were naturalized anyway. An accounting firm also did a sample file review and reported in February 1998 that more than 90 percent of all CUSA cases were adjudicated improperly, including more than 70 percent with defective or nonexistent fingerprint checks. The study concluded that at least 11,500 individuals, and perhaps many more, were naturalized despite their disqualifying criminal records. Reports at the time referenced evidence of the strong possibility of a political motivation for the rush to naturalize, including a letter written to then First Lady Hillary Clinton by Chicago Alderman Daniel Soilis, a leading advocate of CUSA, who observed that the program could “provide the Democrats with a strategic advantage” and that “people stuck in Chicago's naturalization bottleneck represent thousands of potential voters.” At a hearing before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in 1996, a letter from the officer in charge of the INS Fresno Field Office was introduced into the record in which the officer states that the INS had been told “to naturalize everyone who filed form N-400 prior to April 1, 1996, in time for them to vote in the November election.”
We sincerely hope history is not repeating itself.
Therefore, please explain what you are doing or will do to reassure adjudicators that naturalization applications should not be rushed for inappropriate political reasons. Please also explain what steps you are taking or will take to assure our Committees and the American people that background and fingerprint checks will not be weakened, ignored, or completely eliminated. Additionally, we would appreciate an opportunity to interview the author of the July 21 email, identified as a Branch Chief in the USCIS Houston Field Office.
We ask that you respond to our concerns as soon as possible, but not later than October 1. If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Nuebel Kovarik of the Judiciary Committee at 202-224-5225 or Brooke Ericson at 202-228-0079 of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
