Archive for the ‘U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ category

EXCLUSIVE: Immigration Official Okays Syrian Immigrants With Fake Passports [VIDEO]

January 11, 2017

EXCLUSIVE: Immigration Official Okays Syrian Immigrants With Fake Passports [VIDEO], Daily Caller, Alex Pfeiffer, January 10, 2017

An undercover video exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller Tuesday claims to show an immigration official in New York giving advice on how illegal Syrian immigrants can receive asylum with fake passports.

Laura Loomer, an undercover activist for Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), visited a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office Jan. 6 in Port Chester, N.Y. Loomer told an employee who AFDI identified as “Sergio” that she knows a family from Syria who is afraid to come into the office because they are in the country illegally. She said that she wants to make sure the family is “integrated” and has “immigration services.”

“The issue with them is that they have fake passports,” Loomer says in the video.  The man identified as Sergio responded, “We waive sometimes the passports or whatever because they are unable to provide that documentation.”

He asked when the Syrian family arrived, presumably to see if they would be eligible for Temporary Protected Status, which protects Syrian immigrants, of illegal or legal status, from deportation. The status is available to Syrians who have been in the U.S. since Oct. 1, 2016. and the date to register ends in a few weeks.

“The fake passport is one thing, we are going to use the name that is on the passport as AKA, also known as,” the USCIS employee responded. He added, “chances are considering the situation in Syria, they are not going to be sent back.”

The man identified as Sergio said the family could get a work permit and that Loomer should “file accurately” the paperwork and make sure that she uses their correct names or “the names they used with these passports, which are not their own names.”

The USCIS employee went on to say, “Was there ever a situation where people came with fraudulent documents and qualified for asylum? Yes, because it’s understood that they can not always obtain genuine documents. So it’s far from being unique.”

The Daily Caller asked the USCIS if giving asylum to immigrants with fake documents is “far from unique” like the USCIS employee said in the video. A spokesperson responded by saying they do not “publicly discuss individual immigration cases” and giving a link to a information on their refugee and asylum programs. Nearly 85,000 Syrian refugees were resettled in Fiscal Year 2016 and the Obama administration has sped up resettlement in the president’s last days in office.

A USCIS spokesperson also said that the agency cannot confirm the authenticity of the video as they claim it is heavily edited. The USCIS did not confirm nor deny that Sergio is an employee with the agency.

TheDC has previously reported on an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo which states difficulty in preventing fraud in the refugee program as “bad actors” use false biographies and “produce and submit fictitious supporting documentation.” It has also been reported that the Islamic State has a thriving fake passport industry.

WATCH:

Email shows federal immigration bosses in OT push to swear in new citizens ‘due to election’

September 22, 2016

Email shows federal immigration bosses in OT push to swear in new citizens ‘due to election’, Fox News, , September 22, 2016

694940094001_5137149761001_hundreds-of-immigrants-mistakenly-granted-citizenshipHundreds of immigrants mistakenly granted citizenship

The all-out push shows the Obama administration is using levers to help Clinton win, said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“In the pursuit of a partisan advantage, one party has decided integrity in the system is irrelevant,” Stein said. “They don’t really care about checking backgrounds or verifying status and eligibility – it is more about increasing the number of eligible voters in the upcoming election.”

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An internal Obama administration email shows immigration officials may be literally working overtime to swear in as many new “citizen voters” as possible before the Nov. 8 presidential election, a powerful lawmaker charged Thursday.

The email, from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office chief and part of a chain of correspondence within the agency, urges the unnamed recipient to swear in as many citizens as possible “due to the election year.”

“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,” reads the email, which was disclosed to FoxNews.com by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“If you have cases in this category or other pending, you are encouraged to take advantage of the OT if you can,” the email continues. “This will be an opportunity to move your pending naturalization cases. If you have not volunteered for OT, please consider and let me know if you are interested.”

Parts of the email were redacted before it was disclosed to FoxNews.com, but it was sent by the branch chief of the Houston Field Office District 17. It was not clear to whom it was addressed.

“I couldn’t have said it better!” reads the July 21 note introducing the forwarded missive. “It’s the end of the year crunch time, so let’s get crunchy! Go Team Houston! Thanks for all your hard work!”

Johnson and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a Wednesday letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, said it appears the agency is trying to swear in new citizens as the election between Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP choice Donald Trump approaches.

“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,” the senator’s letter read.

Johnson referred to a report this week from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General that found at least 858 people from terror hotspots and other countries of concern had been mistakenly granted citizenship despite facing orders of deportation under other identities.

“Considering that USCIS already has a troubling record of inadequate review of naturalization applications, and mistakenly giving away citizenship to terrorists, criminals and other fraudsters, it is disturbing that they are now in full and blind rubber stamp mode to crank out new citizens,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

In a USCIS planning document submitted to Congress earlier this year, USCIS reported it expected to receive 828,000 total applications this year, up from a planned 815,000 last year, an increase of 13,000, Vaughan said.

A DHS official did not immediately offer comment on the matter.

The effort is reminiscent of a similar bid to bring in new voters when Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, said Claude Arnold, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.

“I am not at all surprised by this revelation,” Arnold said. “This is a repeat of the Clinton election playbook. Then it was to help re-elect Bill Clinton, this time it is to help elect Hillary Clinton.”

The all-out push shows the Obama administration is using levers to help Clinton win, said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“In the pursuit of a partisan advantage, one party has decided integrity in the system is irrelevant,” Stein said. “They don’t really care about checking backgrounds or verifying status and eligibility – it is more about increasing the number of eligible voters in the upcoming election.”