U.S. Prepares to Strip 5,000 of Citizenship

The U.S. government will move to strip the citizenship of almost 5,000 immigrants with criminal arrest records who were wrongly naturalized during 1995-96 as part of the Clinton administration’s controversial Citizenship USA push, federal officials said Friday after a review of more than a million cases.

Once stripped of their citizenship, those with convictions could face deportation but others will be allowed to remain in the U.S. as legal residents.

Such mass revocations are extraordinarily rare and may be unprecedented in recent history, said David Martin, general counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Of those facing a loss of citizenship, the vast majority--4,650--lied on their naturalization applications about past felony arrests, though they may not necessarily have been convicted, officials said. Citizenship applicants are required to disclose all past arrests to the INS.

Officials could not provide a regional breakdown of the impending revocations, which may be appealed by those facing loss of citizenship. But INS authorities say that Southern California produces about one-quarter of all citizenship applications nationwide.

Ironically, 2,143 of those now facing revocation would probably have been granted citizenship even if they had acknowledged the arrests on their applications, since they were never convicted, or had convictions overturned on appeal, said Carole Florman, a Justice Department spokeswoman. It is still unclear whether convictions resulted in the other 2,507 cases, she added.

In addition, 296 new citizens were found to have definite felony convictions that rendered them ineligible for citizenship, Florman said. Officials could provide no detail on the convictions, but “disqualifying felonies” for citizenship applicants range from murder to serious theft.

All of the nearly 5,000 people involved submitted fingerprint cards to the INS, but they were approved for citizenship and sworn in before the FBI completed checks of their fingerprints against its database.

The decision to rescind citizenship is the first broad use of a new federal rule allowing the INS to take such action under an administrative process that is expected to move much more swiftly than the traditional judicial procedure, which can drag on for years and is rarely invoked.

Officials stressed that the almost 5,000 targeted represent the bulk of those improperly naturalized after submitting fingerprints that were never properly checked against FBI records.

But authorities conceded Friday that investigators may never know for sure how many people with criminal records are among the 180,000 other immigrants who became citizens without ever submitting proper FBI fingerprint forms. Officials cannot force people who are already citizens to turn over their fingerprints for FBI background checks.

The 180,000 cases have been run through other FBI database checks--using names and dates of birth--and officials say they are confident that the vast majority do not have disqualifying criminal pasts. Only those using aliases are likely to have escaped detection, Florman said.

Moreover, she added, the files of the 180,000 people involved have been “flagged” and fingerprint checks would be conducted if they have other dealings with the INS, such as petitioning to bring over a relative from abroad.

The audit conclusion marks the latest chapter in the tarnished history of Citizenship USA, which INS Commissioner Doris Meissner unveiled in Los Angeles with great fanfare in August 1995, at a time when record numbers of naturalization applications were streaming into INS offices. The program was designed to streamline and expedite a then-desultory naturalization process, which was marked by bulging backlogs and delays of two years or more in processing applications.

INS regulations have long required that all applicants undergo a thorough background check, including having their fingerprints run through FBI records. But long-time INS procedures called for officials to wait only 60 days to hear back from the FBI before assuming that applicants’ records were clean. With FBI checks often taking longer than 60 days, officials said, many applications went through without complete background checks.

As reports of such irregularities reached Congress, Republicans charged publicly last year that the Clinton administration was naturalizing thousands of criminals in an election-year effort to bolster Democratic voting ranks. The White House has consistently denied any political motivation.

INS Commissioner Meissner has acknowledged serious shortcomings in background check procedures and last year instituted a series of safeguards designed to ensure the “integrity” of the citizenship process. Among other things, no applications are to be approved without the results of FBI background checks being completed.

Because of the new safeguards, citizenship applicants in Los Angeles now have to wait at least 12 months for a decision, compared to six months as of last November.

But independent auditors concluded last month that the agency still has serious flaws in checking backgrounds of would-be citizens.

The exhaustive citizenship review was conducted by INS officials under Justice Department supervision in conjunction with the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick. The auditors examined the cases of more than 1 million people naturalized between September 1995 and September 1996.

The audit is now 95% complete, officials said, although records of some additional new citizens were still being scrutinized and an undetermined number would probably also face revocation of their status. Even before the results of this audit were known, the INS had begun proceedings to revoke the citizenship of 82 other newly sworn-in citizens because of past arrests or convictions.