Immigration Agent Union: Obama Admin ‘Widened the Loopholes’ for ISIS to Enter U.S.

Andrew Johnson
September 18, 2014
National Review Online

The Obama administration has “widened the loopholes” that Islamic State and other extremist fighters could use to enter the United States, a leading union of immigration officials says.

In a statement obtained by National Review Online, the U.S. National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, a union representing 12,000 federal immigration agents, sounded the alarm that not only could jihadists “slip across our porous southern border,” but that fighters could also “exploit our loose and lax visa policies to gain entry to the United States.”

USCIS cites two main issues: a dearth of resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for enforcement and tracking and the administration’s decision to increase the number of immigrants allowed in for asylum purposes.

“Our caseworkers cannot even do in-person interviews for people seeking citizenship, they cannot enforce restrictions on welfare use, and they even lack even the basic office space to properly function,” union president Kenneth Palinkas said in the statement. “Applications for entry are rubber-stamped, the result of grading agents by speed rather than discretion. We’ve become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”

President Obama’s potential executive action to grant legal status to certain illegal immigrants, including those who have overstayed their visas, is another opportunity for people “who are being targeted for radicalization or who already subscribe to radicalized views” to stay in the country, the union said.