GAO Report Confirms DHS, USCIS Vetting Ineptitude; Applications Soar

The December 2^nd U.S. Government Accountability Office’s asylum fraud report has a boatload of bad news. First, the number of applications filed by principals and their eligible dependents more than doubled from 47,118 in 2010 to 108,152 in 2014.

Second, U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a backlog of 106,121 principal applicants, of which 64,254 have exceeded required time frames for adjudication. USCIS plans to hire additional staff at taxpayer expense to reduce the backlog.

Third and most important, GAO found that USCIS is ineffective at fraud detection, and uses its resources poorly. Among other flaws in the USCIS application process is the paper system that overlooks clues to fraud that an electronic system would capture. GOA cited an example in New York that resulted in charges against 30 defendants as of March 2014 for their alleged participation in immigration fraud schemes. A total of 829 applicants associated with the attorneys and preparers charged in the case received asylum from USCIS, and an additional 3,709 received asylum from the Executive Office for Immigration Reform.

Ending visa fraud helps make Americans safer.

In its 2014 story about asylum fraud in Chinatown, The New York Times called false petitions an “industry of lies.” Employees of at least 10 law firms, according to The Times, “were accused of ‘weaving elaborate fictions’ on behalf of hundreds of clients and coaching them on how to lie during their asylum interviews and in court. One of the lawyers would sign blank asylum petitions and let others fill them out with stories he never reviewed, prosecutors said.”

House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said that “rubberstamping” asylum applications is one of the root causes of border surges that began in 2014 and continued this year, exposing the nation to greater possibility of terrorist threats. Goodlatte added that the GAO report represents “mounting evidence” that President Obama “refuses to protect the integrity of our immigration system.”

Couple the GAO report with how easily Pakistani national and terrorist Tashfeen Malik duped immigration authorities when she lied about her address on her K-1 fiancée visa, the simple and only conclusion to draw – despite White House protestations – is that America’s welcome-the-world immigration policies need to end immediately.

The K should be at the top of any wish list for visas to eliminate. It was originally created to help World War II soldiers bring back women they met and wished to marry. Going abroad to find a bride is unnecessary. The Census Bureau reports that in 2013 there were 105 million single Americans 18 and older, a total that would include some naturalized Muslims.

Help secure America. Go to the CAPS Action Alert page here to tell your representatives to add the American SAFE Act to the spending bill and remove any funds for resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Those funds can be used to assist refugees closer to their homes, a far more efficient means of providing assistance.