Feds Hired Suspected Immigrant Spy to
Judge Asylum Cases
hanks
to the Bush administration's loose border security policies,
an Iraqi-born immigrant suspected of being a foreign intelligence
agent was hired by the federal government's immigration
agency to rule on asylum applications, including those from
terrorist-exporting countries in the Middle East, according
to the agency's former chief investigator.
The
suspected foreign agent, whose name has not been released,
oversaw at least 180 different asylum applications while
he worked at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
agency (USCIS). The agency issues green cards, approves
citizenship applications and provides other benefits to
immigrant applicants.
Michael
J. Maxwell, former head of the Office of Security and Investigations
at USCIS, told the Washington Times that his investigation
"turned up national security questions in about nearly
two dozen" of the case handled by the suspect.
That
was just one of many failures Maxwell described at USCIS.
In
testimony about operations at the Department of Homeland
Security, which oversees USCIS, Maxwell told the House subcommittee
on international terrorism that the agency was rife with
fraud, abuse, and even espionage.
"If
we look at the system itself, it's been broken for decades,"
the whistle-blower said. "Absolutely and with conviction
I will tell you that our system is being used against us."
He said that border security, immigration and counter-terrorism
cannot be treated separately, but must be considered a single
issue. "They are tied together inherently," he
said.
Rep.
Ed Royce, R-CA, chairman of the subcommitee, agreed that
USCIS is "deeply flawed" and concentrates too
much on granting immigration benefits and too little on
security.
Maxwell
said the agency recklessly rewards employees with "benefit
parties" and cash, movie tickets, and extra vacation
time for granting immigration benefits quickly, which he
said threatens national security.
He
testified that one agency employee told him her supervisors
pressured staff to process 16 cases per hour, an average
of less than four minutes per application.
"The
system has been designed to allow for the benefits adjudications
to go through the system with very little quality assurance,"
he testified. "The employees are tempted to grant benefits
in order to receive cash and time off."
He
said parties were given for those employees who processed
the most applications each month as a reward to speed up
processing.
The
revelations came while the Senate was considering creation
of a guestworker/amnesty plan for some 11 million to 15
million illegal aliens. If the plan passes Congress, USCIS
would handle the guestworker/amnesty applications.
Maxwell
and another witness, Janice Kephart, who worked on the September
11 Commission, said the agency is not capable of handling
the millions of amnesty applications that a guestworker
program would generate.
Maxwell,
who now works as a consultant on security issues, said the
case of the suspected Iraqi agent was not an isolated case.
"We
know the asylum process is in shambles," he said. Alarmingly,
he added that documents show top officials are aware of
the problem but refuse to do anything about it.
"There
are indicators throughout this entire case [of the suspected
Iraqi] that I saw, professionals within the FBI and the
intelligence community saw, that all pointed one way - we
were dealing with an individual who was a member of a foreign
intelligence agency that had been working within CIS,"
he said.
"The
danger was that he was granting asylum to anybody that he
wanted to, with impunity, at a time of his choosing. Who
was he letting into this country?"
The
suspect was in demand at the agency because of his language
skills. He was able to interview Middle Eastern applicants
without the need for a translator. Maxwell said the man
was hired by USCIS even though there was "negative
security information" in his background that caused
other federal agencies not to hire him.
The
agency's current director, Emilio Gonzalez, told reporters
that rewards for speedy processing would not be allowed
during his tenure.
