Former USCIS Security Director Warns House Panel of National Security Nightmare if Senate Immigration Bill is Enacted

 
Washington, D.C. – Today, at a Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims of the House Judiciary Committee hearing to examine administrative and national security problems in “Reid-Kennedy,” Michael Maxwell, former Director of the Office of Security and Investigations of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), testified that the Senate-passed immigration bill (S. 2611) poses further national security risks than already exist under the current system.

“The fact is that an administrative and national security nightmare alreadyexists at USCIS under our current immigration policy,” said Maxwell. “Implementation of the Senate bill would codify the nightmare and ensure that the criminals, terrorists, and foreign intelligence operatives who have already gamed our immigration system are issued legal documents and allowed to stay permanently.”

Maxwell gave examples of widespread fraud, criminal acts by USCIS employees, infiltration of USCIS by a foreign government agent, and lack of access to information necessary to complete adequate background checks on immigration benefit applicants. Maxwell outlined three overarching issues that need to be addressed before any policy reforms can be effective: 1) rampant internal corruption; 2) a customer-service mentality that trumps national security concerns; and 3) a failure or refusal to share critical national security information among the different component-agencies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), outside law enforcement, or intelligence agencies.

“Any one of these [issues], individually, presents an opportunity for criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence services to do this nation grave harm,” said Maxwell. “To continue forward, to build upon the existing foundation, is akin to building a house on a cracked foundation – it is only a matter of time before the foundation shifts and the house falls.

“The Senate bill acknowledges, at least implicitly, that we do not have control of our borders, that we have no interior enforcement to speak of, that background checks on legal applicants cannot determine who is or is not a terrorist, and that fraud has reached epidemic proportions,” Maxwell concluded. “Then it proposes that we as much as triple legal immigration levels, institute a brand new temporary worker program that is not actually temporary, and give legal status to 10 to 20 million individuals who have broken our laws. It defies logic, then, to build upon a foundation that has failed us, as the Senate bill would do.”

“Mr. Maxwell’s testimony provides a glimpse of the terrifying future that could happen if the Senate bill were implemented,” said NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck. “The Senate bill clearly would exacerbate the nightmarish conditions that Mr. Maxwell describes as already existing in the current system, particularly the pressures to eliminate backlogs that are forcing field managers to cheat the system, and the lack of access to information critical to completing proper checks at USCIS. I hope that the Senators will listen to their constituents during the August recess and adopt the House-passed bill [H.R. 4437] which is a good first step toward truly addressing national security and the rule of law on which our country is governed.”

###