Federal agencies tasked with protecting U.S. borders have allowed illegal border crossers to enter the United States without adequate vetting and board domestic flights, a new Department of Homeland Security inspector general report found.
The 37-page document published on September 30 may be heavily redacted, but it paints a clear picture of the “potential risk” posed to Americans thanks to the willingness of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Transportation Security Agency to admit noncitizens without ID into the country.
“Under current processes, CBP and ICE cannot ensure they are keeping high-risk noncitizens without identification from entering the country. Additionally, TSA cannot ensure its vetting and screening procedures prevent high-risk noncitizens who may pose a threat to the flying public from boarding domestic flights,” the report states.
Federal law deems noncitizens without ID “not admissible into the country” and potentially “subject … to removal from the United States without further hearing or review.” According to Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, however, CBP and ICE routinely use the law’s asylum and humanitarian exceptions to offer documentation to noncitizens without ID based solely on “self-reported biographical information.”
Neither agency, the report warned, “could determine how many of the millions of noncitizens seeking entry in the United States each year entered without identification and whose self-reported biographic information was accepted.”
Already, this system has paved the way for several of the dozens of illegal borders who appear on the terrorist watchlist to be permitted entry
