Conservative Blogger
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Watchdog: Feds wrongly granted citizenship to hundreds facing deportation
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| Report: Immigrants set for deportation granted citizenship |
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found the immigrants used different names or birthdates to apply for citizenship with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration. In the case of 858 immigrants from "special interest countries or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud," the discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.
A few even managed to get aviation or transportation worker credentials, though they were later revoked. One became a law enforcement officer.
The findings were released, incidentally, as authorities were investigating a string of weekend attacks, allegedly connected to foreign-born suspects.
The inspector general report could further fuel warnings about immigration security. The report warned that when immigrants become naturalized, "these individuals retain many of the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship, including serving in law enforcement, obtaining a security clearance, and sponsoring other aliens’ entry into the United States."
The tally in the report was provided by the administration in mid-2014.
But the problem could be even worse. According to the audit, as of November 2015, the administration has found 953 more "who had final deportation orders under another identity and had been naturalized," some of whom were from countries of concern.
DHS Inspector General John Roth also found fingerprints missing from federal databases for as many as 315,000 immigrants with final deportation orders or who are fugitive criminals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not reviewed about 148,000 of those immigrants' files to add fingerprints to the digital record.
“This situation created opportunities for individuals to gain the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship through fraud,” Roth said. “To prevent fraud and ensure thorough review of naturalization applications, USCIS needs access to these fingerprint records.”
Roth added that DHS has agreed to the recommendations made in the audit and that ICE has plans to “review the eligibility of each naturalized citizen whose fingerprint records reveal a deportation order under a different identity.”
The gap in fingerprints was created because older, paper records were never added to fingerprint databases created by both the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI in the 1990s. ICE, the DHS agency responsible for finding and deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, didn't consistently add digital fingerprint records of immigrants whom agents encountered until 2010.
The government has known about the information gap and its impact on naturalization decisions since at least 2008 when a Customs and Border Protection official identified 206 immigrants who used a different name or other biographical information to gain citizenship or other immigration benefits, though few cases have been investigated.
Roth's report said federal prosecutors have accepted two criminal cases that led to the immigrants being stripped of their citizenship. But prosecutors declined another 26 cases. ICE is investigating 32 other cases after closing 90 investigations.
ICE officials told auditors the agency hadn't pursued many of these cases in the past because federal prosecutors "generally did not accept immigration benefits fraud cases." ICE said the Justice Department has now agreed to focus on cases involving people who have acquired security clearances, jobs of public trust or other security credentials.
Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.
At least three of the immigrants-turned-citizens were able to acquire aviation or transportation worker credentials, granting them access to secure areas in airports or maritime facilities and vessels. Their credentials were revoked after they were identified as having been granted citizenship improperly, Roth said in his report.
A fourth person is now a law enforcement officer.
Roth recommended that all of the outstanding cases be reviewed and fingerprints in those cases be added to the government's database and that immigration enforcement officials create a system to evaluate each of the cases of immigrants who were improperly granted citizenship. DHS officials agreed with the recommendations and said the agency is working to implement the changes.
Terror Threat Clash: Trump, Clinton accuse each other of boosting enemy
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed sharply Monday in the wake of weekend attacks across three states that rocketed national security back to the forefront of the campaign, with the Democratic nominee accusing her opponent of giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy – and Trump saying terrorists are “praying” Clinton gets elected.
The Republican nominee, at a rally Monday afternoon in Florida, went on to say the attacks in New York City, New Jersey and Minnesota “were made possible because of our extremely open immigration system” – and accused Clinton of pushing “the most open-borders policy” of any presidential candidate in history.
“Immigration security is national security,” Trump said.
The rally followed a full day of political crossfire -- as the candidates balanced statements of gratitude for the hard and effective work of law enforcement responding to the incidents with hard-edged attacks on each other’s national security credentials.
Clinton, speaking earlier in New York, said she’s the only candidate in the race who was part of the “hard decisions” to take terrorists off the battlefield.
She repeated her call for an intelligence surge, and at a separate speech in Philadelphia said the “fast-moving situation” is a “sobering reminder that we need steady leadership in a dangerous world.”
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, responded during an interview with Rush Limbaugh, saying, “the only thing that gives comfort to our adversaries is weakness.”
He questioned whether Clinton and President Obama “know we’re at war.”
In a blistering statement on Facebook, Trump said:
“Hillary Clinton's weakness while she was Secretary of State, has emboldened terrorists all over the world to attack the U.S., even on our own soil. They are hoping and praying that Hillary Clinton becomes President - so that they can continue their savagery and murder.”
The attacks continued Monday afternoon between the candidates’ aides, with statements and counter-statements being blasted out at a steady clip that underscored how close Election Day – seven weeks off – really is.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller called the attacks a “wakeup call,” and said: “Our enemies neither fear nor respect Hillary Clinton, and as a nation, that is dangerous, and it is disgraceful.”
He also described Clinton's earlier comments as tantamount to an accusation of “treason,” saying her remarks were “beyond the pale” and an effort to “distract from her horrible record on ISIS.”
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said: “For most of his campaign, Donald Trump has made dangerous and irresponsible statements that experts say play directly into the hands of ISIS and its perverse ideology.”
Amid the political war of words, authorities on Monday were able to capture suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was wanted in connection with the Saturday bombing in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, as well as an explosion the same day in New Jersey’s Seaside Park and a foiled attack Sunday night near a train station in Elizabeth, N.J.
Separately, a young Somali man went on a stabbing spree in St. Cloud, Minn., over the weekend, injuring eight. The Islamic State claimed responsibility via ISIS-related media, though President Obama said that at this stage, officials see “no connection” between that attack and what happened in New York and New Jersey.
Trump, meanwhile, pointed to the incidents to renew his call for “extreme vetting” of immigrants from turbulent regions. He told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” the threat is a “cancer from within.”
Liberals denounce the media for not derailing Trump's candidacy
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| Kurtz: The left wants the press to stop Trump |
The liberal media are freaking out over the possibility that Donald Trump might win the presidency.
They are denouncing their profession, decrying what they see as a press corps that coddles Trump and castigates Hillary Clinton, and demanding a change before it is too late.
Let’s take a deep breath and see if they have a credible case, or whether this is pure partisanship.
It’s been just 18 days since Politico reported that Hillary Clinton’s advisers were telling her to prepare for a possible landslide in the Electoral College. Now, with Trump pulling roughly even in national polls and ahead or within striking distance in most battleground states, a Trump administration is no longer some distant mirage.
Some folks on the left are so convinced that Trump would be a disaster, and so mystified why roughly half the country doesn’t view him with the same disdain, that they are lashing out at the media.
I would pose this question: Why do these pundits think they’re so much smarter than everyone else that they can clearly see Trump’s flaws but others are blinded by lousy media coverage?
I’d also pose this question: Can anyone seriously say
there hasn’t been an avalanche of negative coverage about Trump and the
birther issue, Trump and the Khan family, Trump and the comments about
“Second Amendment people” taking care of Clinton, Trump and the
Mexican-American judge, and on and on?
At the same time, I’ll confirm this point: Trump creates so many serial controversies that it’s hard for journalists to keep up with them all. He changes positions, such as on mass deportations, with barely an acknowledgement. He backtracks, such on his earlier birther crusade, without apology. I pressed him last week on the lack of any public record for his contention that he opposed the Iraq invasion. As reporters chase each story, other ones, such as his refusal to release his tax returns, slip off the radar.
But it’s not like Americans haven’t had sustained exposure to Trump’s strengths and weaknesses for more than 15 months.
Perhaps the most vociferous plea comes from Nick Kristof, the liberal, Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist who often writes about human rights around the world. He thinks Trump is a “crackpot”:
“I wonder if once again our collective reporting isn’t fueling misperceptions.
“A CNN/ORC poll this month found that by a margin of 15 percentage points, voters thought Donald Trump was ‘more honest and trustworthy’ than Hillary Clinton. Let’s be frank: This public perception is completely at odds with all evidence....Clearly, Clinton shades the truth — yet there’s no comparison with Trump.
“I’m not sure that journalism bears responsibility, but this does raise the thorny issue of false equivalence…Is it journalistic malpractice to quote each side and leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions, even if one side seems to fabricate facts or make ludicrous comments?...
“We owe it to our readers to signal when we’re writing about a crackpot. Even if he’s a presidential candidate. No, especially when he’s a presidential candidate.”
Kristof is among the journalists making the case for false equivalence, that Trump is so much less credible than Clinton, even though Clinton has had problems with her private email server and family foundation. So it must be that the press is being too tough on her and not tough enough on Trump.
Another liberal Times columnist, the Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman, asks: “Why are the media objectively pro-Trump?”
I’m not sure how “objective” a strongly ideological commentator can be, but here’s his case:
“It’s not even false equivalence: compare the amount of attention given to the Clinton Foundation despite absence of any evidence of wrongdoing, and attention given to Trump Foundation, which engaged in more or less open bribery — but barely made a dent in news coverage.
Clinton was harassed endlessly over failure to give press conferences, even though she was doing lots of interviews; Trump violated decades of tradition by refusing to release his taxes, amid strong suspicion that he is hiding something; the press simply dropped the subject…
“And I don’t see how the huffing and puffing about the foundation — which ‘raised questions,’ but where the media were completely unwilling to accept the answers they found — fits into this at all.
“No, it’s something special about Clinton Rules. I don’t really understand it. But it has the feeling of a high school clique bullying a nerdy classmate because it’s the cool thing to do.”
Clinton has had testy relations with the press, in part because of that whole no-press-conference-for-nine-months thing (and her national interviews were rather infrequent). But is it really fair to say that journalists are “bullying” her, and enjoying it to boot?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, in more measured tones that harken back to Spiro Agnew’s criticism of the press, says that Trump coverage has become “a new crisis of credibility”:
“There is the matter of Trump’s outsize access to television time during the primaries that dwarfed the attention given to his competitors. Liberals insist further that Trump is being held to a much lower standard than is Hillary Clinton, which, in turn, means that while relatively short shrift is given to each new Trump scandal, the same old Clinton scandals get covered again and again…
“But the coverage of Trump and Clinton does suggest that a media exquisitely sensitive to conservative criticism now overcompensates against the other side…
“Journalists need to ask whether they have created a narrative about Clinton that paints her as less trustworthy than Trump even though the factual evidence is overwhelming that he lies far more than she does.”
It’s worth repeating: The media may have covered too many of Trump’s primary rallies, but the big imbalance in coverage was largely due to his doing a zillion interviews while the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush were hard to get.
And have journalists really “created a narrative” about Clinton that has made people distrust her? Isn’t this a problem that has been building in the quarter-century since the days of Whitewater and cattle futures, since she testified before a grand jury as first lady? Doesn’t she bear some responsibility for a lack of skill at defusing damaging stories?
Some on the left make their argument in more apocalyptic terms, such as Salon:
“According to what we’re observing online and via cable news, Hillary Clinton’s negatives are eons more grievous than Donald Trump’s missteps, even though they’re not, and even though this disparity unfairly elevates Trump and his poll numbers. This is how elections are titled toward despots and undisciplined strongmen. They’re legitimized and humanized despite their long menu of unprecedented gaffes, lies and treachery.”
And it’s not hard to see the way the tone has changed in news stories, such as this piece in the New York Times:
“Routine falsehoods, unfounded claims and inflammatory language have long been staples of Mr. Trump’s anything-goes campaign. But as the polls tighten and November nears, his behavior, and the implications for the country should he become president, are alarming veteran political observers — and leaving them deeply worried about the precedent being set, regardless of who wins the White House.”
There is plenty of room for debate about the quality and thoroughness of Trump’s coverage. But if the media get blamed for his recent surge, don’t they also get credit for his high negatives?
The fact is that Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush all won elections despite varying degrees of unsympathetic coverage from the press. The media need to be aggressive in holding both candidates accountable. But they can’t be blamed for the fact that tens of millions of American voters now favor the outsider candidate that many commentators, on the left and the right, detest.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
They are denouncing their profession, decrying what they see as a press corps that coddles Trump and castigates Hillary Clinton, and demanding a change before it is too late.
Let’s take a deep breath and see if they have a credible case, or whether this is pure partisanship.
It’s been just 18 days since Politico reported that Hillary Clinton’s advisers were telling her to prepare for a possible landslide in the Electoral College. Now, with Trump pulling roughly even in national polls and ahead or within striking distance in most battleground states, a Trump administration is no longer some distant mirage.
Some folks on the left are so convinced that Trump would be a disaster, and so mystified why roughly half the country doesn’t view him with the same disdain, that they are lashing out at the media.
I would pose this question: Why do these pundits think they’re so much smarter than everyone else that they can clearly see Trump’s flaws but others are blinded by lousy media coverage?
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
At the same time, I’ll confirm this point: Trump creates so many serial controversies that it’s hard for journalists to keep up with them all. He changes positions, such as on mass deportations, with barely an acknowledgement. He backtracks, such on his earlier birther crusade, without apology. I pressed him last week on the lack of any public record for his contention that he opposed the Iraq invasion. As reporters chase each story, other ones, such as his refusal to release his tax returns, slip off the radar.
But it’s not like Americans haven’t had sustained exposure to Trump’s strengths and weaknesses for more than 15 months.
Perhaps the most vociferous plea comes from Nick Kristof, the liberal, Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist who often writes about human rights around the world. He thinks Trump is a “crackpot”:
“I wonder if once again our collective reporting isn’t fueling misperceptions.
“A CNN/ORC poll this month found that by a margin of 15 percentage points, voters thought Donald Trump was ‘more honest and trustworthy’ than Hillary Clinton. Let’s be frank: This public perception is completely at odds with all evidence....Clearly, Clinton shades the truth — yet there’s no comparison with Trump.
“I’m not sure that journalism bears responsibility, but this does raise the thorny issue of false equivalence…Is it journalistic malpractice to quote each side and leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions, even if one side seems to fabricate facts or make ludicrous comments?...
“We owe it to our readers to signal when we’re writing about a crackpot. Even if he’s a presidential candidate. No, especially when he’s a presidential candidate.”
Kristof is among the journalists making the case for false equivalence, that Trump is so much less credible than Clinton, even though Clinton has had problems with her private email server and family foundation. So it must be that the press is being too tough on her and not tough enough on Trump.
Another liberal Times columnist, the Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman, asks: “Why are the media objectively pro-Trump?”
I’m not sure how “objective” a strongly ideological commentator can be, but here’s his case:
“It’s not even false equivalence: compare the amount of attention given to the Clinton Foundation despite absence of any evidence of wrongdoing, and attention given to Trump Foundation, which engaged in more or less open bribery — but barely made a dent in news coverage.
Clinton was harassed endlessly over failure to give press conferences, even though she was doing lots of interviews; Trump violated decades of tradition by refusing to release his taxes, amid strong suspicion that he is hiding something; the press simply dropped the subject…
“And I don’t see how the huffing and puffing about the foundation — which ‘raised questions,’ but where the media were completely unwilling to accept the answers they found — fits into this at all.
“No, it’s something special about Clinton Rules. I don’t really understand it. But it has the feeling of a high school clique bullying a nerdy classmate because it’s the cool thing to do.”
Clinton has had testy relations with the press, in part because of that whole no-press-conference-for-nine-months thing (and her national interviews were rather infrequent). But is it really fair to say that journalists are “bullying” her, and enjoying it to boot?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, in more measured tones that harken back to Spiro Agnew’s criticism of the press, says that Trump coverage has become “a new crisis of credibility”:
“There is the matter of Trump’s outsize access to television time during the primaries that dwarfed the attention given to his competitors. Liberals insist further that Trump is being held to a much lower standard than is Hillary Clinton, which, in turn, means that while relatively short shrift is given to each new Trump scandal, the same old Clinton scandals get covered again and again…
“But the coverage of Trump and Clinton does suggest that a media exquisitely sensitive to conservative criticism now overcompensates against the other side…
“Journalists need to ask whether they have created a narrative about Clinton that paints her as less trustworthy than Trump even though the factual evidence is overwhelming that he lies far more than she does.”
It’s worth repeating: The media may have covered too many of Trump’s primary rallies, but the big imbalance in coverage was largely due to his doing a zillion interviews while the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush were hard to get.
And have journalists really “created a narrative” about Clinton that has made people distrust her? Isn’t this a problem that has been building in the quarter-century since the days of Whitewater and cattle futures, since she testified before a grand jury as first lady? Doesn’t she bear some responsibility for a lack of skill at defusing damaging stories?
Some on the left make their argument in more apocalyptic terms, such as Salon:
“According to what we’re observing online and via cable news, Hillary Clinton’s negatives are eons more grievous than Donald Trump’s missteps, even though they’re not, and even though this disparity unfairly elevates Trump and his poll numbers. This is how elections are titled toward despots and undisciplined strongmen. They’re legitimized and humanized despite their long menu of unprecedented gaffes, lies and treachery.”
And it’s not hard to see the way the tone has changed in news stories, such as this piece in the New York Times:
“Routine falsehoods, unfounded claims and inflammatory language have long been staples of Mr. Trump’s anything-goes campaign. But as the polls tighten and November nears, his behavior, and the implications for the country should he become president, are alarming veteran political observers — and leaving them deeply worried about the precedent being set, regardless of who wins the White House.”
There is plenty of room for debate about the quality and thoroughness of Trump’s coverage. But if the media get blamed for his recent surge, don’t they also get credit for his high negatives?
The fact is that Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush all won elections despite varying degrees of unsympathetic coverage from the press. The media need to be aggressive in holding both candidates accountable. But they can’t be blamed for the fact that tens of millions of American voters now favor the outsider candidate that many commentators, on the left and the right, detest.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
Trump Jr. draws outrage after likening Syrian refugees to poisoned Skittles
Donald Trump Jr. drew outrage Monday after posting a message on Twitter likening Syrian refugees to a bowl of poisoned Skittles.
The tweet featured a picture of a bowl of the candy with a warning:
His tweet that sought to promote his father’s presidential campaign drew plenty of blowback on the social networking site.
Some responded to Trump Jr.’s tweet with photos of child refugees with the caption “Not Skittles.” Singer John Legend took a jab a Trump Jr. in a series of tweets.
Nick Merrill, a press secretary for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, called the tweet “disgusting.”
Denise Young, VP of Corporate Affairs for Wrigley Americas, which owns Skittles, addressed Trump Jr.’s tweet in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
The Republican nominee has advocated sharply restraining immigration and has accused opponent Clinton of advocating acceptance of tens of thousands of refugees.
The tweet came as world leaders meeting at the United Nations on Monday approved a declaration aimed at providing a more coordinated and humane response to the global refugee crisis, among which Syrians are a major grouping.
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