How to clear an immigration backlog: Skip the background checks!
McClatchy reporter James Asher has a new piece out detailing how DHS is clearing massive application backlogs by skipping the background checks. Before we get into the meat of that story, let me refresh your memories about a few things.
During the shamnesty debacle, we were told to shut up about our national security concerns because McCain and company were going to guarantee that all illegal alien guest-workers would get thorough background checks. We were told to calm down about the proposal because there was nothing to worry about. But the background check process was a fraud.
And anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the adjudication process at DHS and the former INS agency has long known that security is routinely short-circuited. In 2006, I published memos exposing the incentive structure rewarding adjudication officers for rubber-stamping as many applications as possible. Immigration agents across the country receive bonuses when they meet quotas for approving applications. Those national security-undermining incentives and bonuses remain in place. Flashback (click for full-size memos):
Here’s a memo from the Houston USCIS office from May 2004. According to sources, adjudicators are still being rewarded for high “average completions per day.”
In fact, bureaucrats have cooked up elaborate evaluation charts and ratings based on completion of different types of applications.
The single number in the boxes that begins with an “I” is a type of application. The column of numbers shows how many of each application an adjudicator must process per hour to receive a rating of outstanding (O), excellent (E), and so on. Promotions, raises, and bonuses are based on these ratings at the National Benefits Center in Lee’s Summit, MO.
Now, ask your representatives in Washington how the hell they think the millions of applications for the Senate’s amnesty and guest-worker programs will be subject to more rigorous and careful scrutiny–when entrenched rubber-stamping of current and backlogged applications gets rewarded and always has been.
In 2003, an INS center in Laguna Niguel solved the massive backlog problem by putting tens of thousands of applications through a shredder.
And I reminded you last week of how the Clintons sped up the naturalization process to create millions of new Democrat voters by…circumventing background checks.
And so we come to James Asher’s new report. Everything old is new again:
In a major policy shift aimed at reducing a ballooning immigration backlog, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of applicants before the FBI completes a required background check.
Those eligible are immigrants whose fingerprints have cleared the FBI database of criminal convictions and arrests, but whose names have not yet cleared the FBI’s criminal or intelligence files after six months of waiting.
The immigrants who are granted permanent status, more commonly known as getting their green cards, will be expected eventually to clear the FBI’s name check. If they don’t, their legal status will be revoked and they’ll be deported.
Oh, no they won’t. Again: Learn from history.
DHS tries to maintain self-delusion:
DHS officials said the new process does not pose any new security risks because green card applicants have been allowed to remain in the country while they wait to be screened.
“We will do nothing that cuts corners or compromises national security,” said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency that processes green cards and citizenship.
Mark Krikorian provides the reality check:
“It’s a decision driven by the bureaucratic imperative to move the line along rather than addressing national security concerns,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “It defies the imagination that you can require a security check only to decide that you’re going to ignore it.”
Same old, same old.
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- Hot Air » Blog Archive » DHS skips FBI background checks for immigrants seeking residency
- Michelle Malkin » Resurrection: House Dems to bring back shamnesty?
- Thanks Michelle! at Desert Conservative
- Pencil Nub » Wednesday WTFs
- Michelle Malkin » The swan song of Hillary Rodham Clinton?
- Michelle Malkin » Homeland insecurity watch: The naturalization stampede
- Pelosi Suckles Illegals, Bashes Ice Agents « rjjrdq’s America
- U.S. Immigration agency says backlog virtually gone « Immigration Watch International
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We need to sue to stop this now!
If a lawsuit can be used to prevent the Navy from using sonar because it may cause a Freaking Whale to beach itself,
Then by god we should have a case to Stop this Crap!
Somewhat like the movie “Bruce Almighty,” where he answered all the requests at once with a simple “YES!”
It gets worse. Even if you get to the stage of being deported, the illegals routinely file what is called a Lozada motion in which they claim their attorney did a bad job and thus, they shouldn’t be deported. the Illegal is required to file a complaint against the lawyer with the appropriate State Bar (where I work) and the matter is investigated. These cases are very time consuming and are done for the most part to delay the deportation process. It’s another way for the illegals to scam the system and stay in our country.
This morning I just sent in my wife’s I-485 and I-765, costing me $1010. So, now, it’s been 1-1/2 years now, waiting for some results of our money and time. The best we got was an approval and an interview setup in Indonesia. So, it’s back to the drawing board and another $1010. Maybe if I changed her name to “Maria Gonzalez” or “Gomez” she could be working today. We try to do things right and legally. Sigh. The whole thing has become a joke.
Yep. I’ve quoted the immigration lawyers’ lobby many times before: “It ain’t over ’til the alien wins.”
After all of the hoo-hah last year, after all of the old ladies getting patted down at airports, I can’t believe DHS is still trying to give away the store. The hypocrisy is on an Orwellian scale.
May God save America this November.
This proves to me that the more complicated a law becomes, the less chance there is of enforcement.
We will never be able to handle immigration until we get rid of all the special subsections and procedures that muck it up. If you’re here illegally, goodbye.
Demonstrating
Half-arsed
Security
When you create a bureaucracy to handle important matters this is what happens.
Recall the duct tape and plastic recommendations courtesy of Tom Ridge so we can all combat anthrax?
It’s the same stuff over and over and over again! Truly, the best and brightest ARE NOT working for the freaking government.
Only in the military.
And if they are so concerned with being backlogged, then WHY would the ‘bonuses’ be gifted as MORE TIME OFF for the employees?
Do your job correctly, then you can take a week or so off so we can get far far behind again.
That makes a lot of sense….NOT!
Sounds more like a govt weasels way of “job security”… not Homeland Security
It seems Chertoff has succeeded into turning the title “Homeland Security” into an oxymoron.
Isn’t it against union rules for government employees to actually work?
Government bureaucracy at work. And, people want these same people to handle our health care? So, I either lose my money to taxes and/or lose my health to Hillarycare.
It’s working meatpie, not a single case of anthrax has gotten past my duct-taped windows this year!
As usual we’re locking the barn door after all of the horses have gotten out.
Do you see the big picture?
Illegals are being allowed to come into our country to “destroy” any sense of OUR culture. This will create, if not already, chaos.
During times of chaos is when the government moves in and takes over.
This is exactly the plan….to completely overthrow OUR freedoms.
We can fuss all we want, but it is inevitable.
When there is chaos there is EVIL.
I look for another attack on our country sometime in 2009. It will be be because the new terrorists will have circumvented every non-working, just-for-show, so-called security requirement put in place since 9/11.
Even if a concerned citizen tries to take action to prevent it, he will be shouted down as politcally incorrect and made to shut up.
Hirsi Ali couldn’t be reached for comment.
I want to know how I can become an illegal alien so I can get all the benefits and Representation without taxation.
Heh, more like letting the horses out and letting rabbits in. Locks on doors? Pishaw!
Gomer still thinks there is an INS while McCant has Juan “Mexico First” Hernandez in his campaign. They are both border sellouts.
The DHS should be gotten rid of only with FEMA and a few other agencies.
Too bad Ru Paul was a racist, fascist, blame America for everything, isolationist, nutjob. I really believe that he would had at the very least got rid of those cancerous government. agencies.
This is nothing more than another attempt to find a way to back door the Shamnesty and Dream Acts we fought so hard to stopp last year … more than once in fact …
I think it is time to shut down the phone banks and email services of Congress again folks …
Call your representatives and senators today and let’s get this stopped now before it goes any further …
What a freakin mess…Chertoff should be exiled.
Maybe you should drop your wife 100 yards off the Florida coast and have her swim into shore, and then claim she’s Cuban. Free pass to citizenship.
There is a much easier way to stop all the backlogs…make applications from citizens of Mexico, Latin American, African, China, and Middle Eastern countries ineligible.
In addition, refuse to issue student visas for “students” from China, and from Islamic countries whose governments don’t support human rights.
And how about prosecuting all those (un)-civil servants who failed to uphold federal law? It will never happen…there is no political will to do so, in either party.
John brings up a good point. What happens to illegal aliens who work here, and fail to pay income taxes? Are they prosecuted for it, or just sent back to their countries of origin?
We know what happens to citizens who don’t pay their federal income taxes. Why isn’t the law applied fairly for all tax cheats?
You may be giving them too much credit with the “half-arsed” description.
right_on, That is not pc. Too many politicians would lose votes and we can’t have
that!!!!!!!
Yeah…heaven forbid!!!!
Love that photoshop of the Muppet red/yellow/blue (etc.) alerts. Someone please link to the image so I can save it as a desktop.
This is also being done to get these applicants the “benefits to which they are
entitled as quickly as possible.” What benefits are these people entitled to?
Once upon a time you had to be healthy and able to work to immigrate to this
country. Now all you have to be is breathing.
Ummmmmm, if we complete background checks on all of the fine
gang membershard working citizens that Mexico sends here, it may compromise their national sovereignty. We certainly would not want that on our hands now would we?/ Sarc
But neither will they do anything to enhance it.
Homeland security and skipping security checks are mutually exclusive terms. Treating our security like a joke simply makes it one.