Recent Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report Biden administration ministries and agencies revealedneed improvement Screening and screening of asylum seekers and aliens applying for admission to the United States.”
The June 7 report released the results of an audit of the Department of Homeland Security’s vetting procedures for illegal immigrants released into the country.
“Testing procedures vary and are sometimes inconsistent.”
“We conducted this audit to determine the effectiveness of the Department of Homeland Security’s technology, procedures, and coordination for screening and vetting asylum seekers and aliens,” the report said.
The audit found that DHS processes “were not sufficiently effective at screening and vetting aliens applying for admission to the United States or asylum seekers whose cases had been pending for an extended period of time.”
The report noted that Customs and Border Protection “does not have access to all of the federal data necessary to enable full screening and identification of undocumented immigrants.” The report also found that CBP lacks the technology to conduct biometric matches at land ports of entry and implements “diverse and sometimes inconsistent screening procedures.”
In its investigation, the inspector general’s office found that Border Patrol agents at three land ports of entry “did not check all Simplified Entry Card passengers for criminal warrants, national security concerns, or border crossing history before allowing them entry.” According to officers, supervisors “frequently instructed them to question only drivers to expedite the process,” according to the report.
Additionally, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services failed to “timely review more than 400,000 active asylum seekers who applied for asylum between October 2017 and March 2023.”
The department also has not implemented “dedicated procedures or comprehensive technology solutions to provide provisional adjudication of asylum applicants whose cases have not been adjudicated within the 180-day time frame,” the report said. As a result, USCIS may not be able to identify undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. who “have adverse information.”
The inspector general’s report laid out five recommendations and concluded that if DHS did not address the issues outlined, it would “resume risk of allowing dangerous individuals into the country or of asylum seekers remaining in the United States who may pose a significant threat to public safety and national security.”
In response to the report, DHS said it plans to implement an “automated biometric entry/exit system” that CBP can use. The department agreed with all of the inspector general’s recommendations for improving screening procedures.
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