Top DHS Official Says It Can’t Handle a Mass Amnesty

Homeland Security Assistant Inspector General Frank Deffer told the House’s Immigration Subcommittee on Tuesday that the agency is not prepared for a mass amnesty, and Congress should consider this if and when they take up comprehensive immigration reform. Deffer called a mass amnesty “the mother of all backlogs.”

Deffer further told Congress that Citizenship and Immigration Services is in the process of converting from a paper-based system to an electronic-based system and offering citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens is a bad idea.

“Clearly to us the systems could not handle it now,” Deffer said during his testimony. “It’s going to take a few years, so it’s something for Congress to consider that, when they implement this, they don’t have a date too soon.”

Pres. Obama said in a video message during Sunday’s March for America rally on the National Mall that he will push for a bipartisan mass amnesty bill before the end of the year. In response to Deffer’s statements, USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas said that the agency will be prepared for a mass amnesty, but expects resources to make it happen.

The last major amnesty passed in 1986 allowed hundreds of thousands of ineligible illegal aliens to receive citizenship because the agency wasn’t prepared.

For more information on this story, see the Washington Times.