The Washington Times: They should have been deported, but hundreds of illegal immigrants from dangerous countries were instead granted citizenship by Homeland Security because officials never checked their fingerprints to find out their real identities, the department’s inspector general said in a staggering report Monday.
At least two of those who got citizenship have since been investigated for ties to terrorism, and two others managed to gain jobs in secure areas of airports.
Perhaps most stunning is that Homeland Security and federal prosecutors have let the illegal immigrants turned citizens get away with their potential fraud. Charges were brought in just two of the more than 800 cases identified.
The report was released as the country was learning the identity of the suspect in this weekend’s New York and New Jersey terror bombings — and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump connected the two, saying the U.S. is inviting those kinds of attacks if it can’t assure Americans it’s screening applications correctly.
“The safety and security of the homeland must be the overriding objective of our leaders when it comes to our immigration policy,” Mr. Trump said in a statement hours after the arrest of Ahmad Khan Rahami, whom authorities captured after a brief gunbattle.
There is no evidence Mr. Rahami, whose family fled Afghanistan and sought asylum in the U.S., reportedly in the 1990s, was part of the hundreds who earned bogus citizenship because of bad identity checks. But lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they wanted the problem fixed immediately anyway.
