John Roth, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, has called on immigration officials to halt plans for the reinstatement of their electronic system, designed to process applications for naturalization. He notes that the flawed system has been found to have alarming security issues.
An ongoing review has been underway for the electronic immigration system belonging to the US Center for Immigration Services by the DHS Office of the Inspector General. Although Roth did not specify the exact nature of the security concerns, his announcement cited serious worries and pointed out the unusual move of such a recommendation being made even before an investigation had been completed. A public alert to Department of Homeland Security management says that urgent corrective action by the leadership of USCIS needs to be taken on the matter.
The review by the Inspector General began last month, as a result of discoveries that the system appears to have mistakenly issued as many as 2000 green cards to people who had put in an application to gain US citizenship while failing to conduct the unknown number of the necessary background checks. In August last year, USCIS stopped using the system as a result of the problems but were planning to start again later this month.
In a statement released on Monday, Roth said that his office is advising against prematurely returning to using a system that still has many unresolved technical and functional issues surrounding it.