In a new, heavily revised report, Department of Homeland Security The (DHS) Inspector General (IG) found that several federal agencies did not fully assess the risks associated with releasing non-citizens into the US without identification and allowing them to travel on domestic flights.
Inspector General Joseph V. Caffari said in the report that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) failed to ensure that high-risk individuals without ID Non-citizens are not entering. Boarding domestic and international flights.
The IG said that according to federal law, “noncitizens without ID are not permitted to enter the country and will be detained,” but CBP and ICE have the discretion to release noncitizens into the U.S. depending on a variety of circumstances. Is allowed to do.
The report said CBP and ICE accept self-reported biographical information, which they use to give immigrants immigration forms. Migrants are then able to board domestic flights even if they do not have identification.
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Immigrants line up at a remote US Border Patrol processing center after crossing the US-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona on December 07, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The inspector general said he asked DHS for data on the number of noncitizens who did not have identification and were released into the U.S. between fiscal years 2021-23, but CBP and ICE were unable to provide the information because they filed their Did not log in to the system. Whether the non-citizen had identification or not.
“Immigration officials we interviewed acknowledged the risks of allowing noncitizens into the country without ID,” the IG said.
When it came to TSA, the report found that it relied on CBP and ICE data and background checks on non-citizens to make that determination. Non-citizens were a threat.
The report said that if data from CBP and ICE is incomplete, “TSA’s methods of screening individuals who pose a threat may not necessarily prevent these individuals from boarding flights.”
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Passengers line up at the TSA screening area at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022, in Austin, Texas. (Austin-Bergstrom International Airport via AP)
Several parts of the report have been extensively redacted, particularly where TSA conducted an assessment on the risks of using the CBP One cell phone app as a screening tool – the results of the assessment are not disclosed in the report.
The IG report said they identified “similar vulnerabilities” CBP’s screening procedures, Which “allowed high-risk individuals into the country.”
One of the high-risk individuals was released to the US while in the FBI terror watch list In 2022. Two Afghans who posed a national security threat were also paroled to the US as part of Operation Ally’s Welcome, the report said.
Migrants wait in line to enter a shelter set up by authorities for migrants while waiting for an appointment through an application at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on May 23, 2023. (Christian Torres Chavez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The report concluded, “If CBP and ICE continue to allow noncitizens—whose identities immigration officials cannot confirm—to enter the country, they could inadvertently increase national security risks.”
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Both ICE and CBP contested the IG’s report and DHS did not agree with the report’s findings. The TSA said the report does not reflect their current policies.
DHS stated that they cannot detain all individuals detained, including inadmissible noncitizens without ID, for a number of reasons, including lack of resources such as bed space.
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ICE said it is currently funded to have a detention capacity of 41,500 beds, which does not allow them to detain every non-citizen who does not have ID and valid documentation, while CBP said their detention facilities Are for “short-term” detention.
CBP said that even to mitigate potential risks, they cannot legally detain non-citizens for longer than the law allows.
The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, Representative Mark Green, R-Tenn., responded to the report in a statement to Fox News.
“It’s shameful that the Biden-Harris administration needs an official government watchdog to tell them what anyone with even a little common sense intuitively understands,” Greene wrote. “This Administration should not allow undocumented noncitizens to roam freely in our communities and board planes, especially when their identities cannot even be verified. The massive failures documented by the OIG are bad enough – this What’s worse is that they’re happening in a place with the blessing of the Biden-Harris White House on a daily basis.”
