You are here: Home / Immigration Blog Posts / Texas Congressman Seeks to Stop Naturalizations until DHS Fingerprint Repository is Updated
Texas Congressman Seeks to Stop Naturalizations until DHS Fingerprint Repository is Updated
October 19, 2016 By RJ Hauman 3 Comments
In response to a scathing report released last month by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG), Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) has introduced H.R. 6198. This commonsense bill would ensure that ineligible, potentially dangerous individuals are not granted citizenship while DHS works to fully digitize its fingerprint records.
Specifically, the IG revealed that at least 858 individuals were granted citizenship despite having a final deportation order under another identity. While the report does not reveal the names of the immigrants or the countries of origin, the IG said that they are all from countries that are of concern to the national security of the United States or have high rates of immigration fraud. The report found that this egregious mistake occurred because neither the digital fingerprint repository at DHS nor the repository at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) contains all old fingerprint records of individuals who were previously deported. The IG report further noted that approximately 148,000 fingerprint records of individuals from “special interest countries” who had final deportation orders or who are criminals or fugitives have yet to be digitized.
http://immigrationreform.com/2016/10/19/texas-congressman-seeks-to-stop-naturalizations-until-dhs-fingerprint-repository-is-updated/
