Documents Reveal That 'Dreamers' Order Opened Door to Relatives of Illegal Immigrants, "Inundating" Border Towns With Petitions for Admission
WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - Jun 11, 2013) - Judicial Watch announced today that documents obtained recently through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) abandoned required background checks late last year, adopting, instead, costly "lean and lite" procedures in effort to keep up with the flood of amnesty applications spurred by President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) directive, which grants illegal aliens a two-year deferment from deportation.
Acting on a tip from a whistleblower at a federal law enforcement agency, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with DHS, for "all communications, memoranda, emails, policy guidance, directives, initiatives, and any other correspondence respecting the scope and extent of background checks to be performed (or not) on aliens applying to the Obama administration's DACA program." The FOIA was filed on October 26, 2012. The Immigration and National Security Act (INA) mandates a "coordinated, uniform, and efficient," system of background checks. Instead, the FOIA documents reveal a costly, haphazard process, with only cursory review for the backgrounds of illegal aliens seeking "deferred status." Document highlights include:
The documents also reveal that, contrary to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's claim that DACA applied only to minors who came to this country illegally "through no fault of their own," the directive actually created a new avenue of chain migration, whereby immediate relatives of DACA requesters could be approved for amnesty. As a result, according to a June 18, 2012, agency memo from District 15 Director, David Douglas, "some of the districts closer to the U.S./Mexico border have been inundated."
"The Obama administration seems to be throwing public safety and national security out the door in implementing its illicit and unilateral amnesty program for illegal aliens. The costs and security lapses of this program show that this administration can't be trusted to implement any of the new security measures in the amnesty bill in the Senate," stated Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. "These documents show a crisis in law enforcement and national security caused by President Obama's unilateral decision to grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands illegal aliens."