[Dataloss] Citizenship Agency Lost 111,000 Files

[Richard Forno]

Citizenship Agency Lost 111,000 Files

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; Page A21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801
402.html

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has lost track of 111,000 files in
14 of the agency's busiest district offices and processed as many as 30,000
citizenship applications last year without the necessary files,
congressional investigators reported yesterday.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm, conducted the
review at the request of Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Susan
Collins (R-Maine) after U.S. authorities granted citizenship in 2002 to a
man without checking his primary file. The file, which was lost, indicated
ties to the militant Islamic group Hezbollah.
    
"It only takes one missing file of somebody with links to a terrorist
organization to become an American citizen," said Grassley, who is chairman
of the Senate Finance Committee. "We can't afford to be handing out
citizenship with blinders on."

Collins, head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, noted that some of
the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the U.S. legally, disappearing until the
terrorist attacks. She called it "unthinkable" that the U.S. immigration
system could still grant citizenship to a potential terrorist "simply
because they can't find the person's file."

An agency official said workers probably checked most of the files but
failed to make note of it.

The GAO report, dated Oct. 27 and released by the senators yesterday,
underscored long-standing problems at the agency, which was created out of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service and is expected to bear the brunt
of administering new rules if Congress overhauls immigration policy.

The $1.8 billion agency handled 7.5 million applications for immigration
benefits in 2005 but relies on paper files. The agency awarded a five-year,
$150 million contract in August to begin digitizing 55 million "alien
files," or A-files, but for now it still relies on paper files.

The GAO found that the agency's workers failed to record A-file use in
processing 30,000 of 715,000 naturalization cases last year, or 4 percent of
cases. The GAO also found that as of July 27, Citizenship and Immigration
Services' electronic tracking system reported that 111,000 A-files were lost
in the 14 offices that manage two-thirds of naturalization cases.

Steven J. Pecinovsky, an agency liaison to the GAO, said workers are not
required to note that they have checked A-files but will be in the future. A
2005 internal audit found a much lower incidence of unchecked A-files than
the GAO cited -- about 0.5 percent.

The GAO also cited internal audits that found that 21 percent of files were
not where they were supposed to be in Immigration Services' San Diego office
in 2005 and that 6 percent of files could not be found in the Los Angeles
office earlier this year.