Immigration services bureau loses thousands of records (another DOH moment in govt)

[The Straight Story]

Immigration services bureau loses thousands of records

By Daniel Pulliam
[e-mail]

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency may have processed as many as 30,000 citizenship applications in 2005 without reviewing critical background files, thousands of which have been lost, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The 30,000 applications that may have been processed without so-called alien files in fiscal 2005 represented about 4 percent of the 715,000 total applications handled that year. The files, known as A-files, contain information such as arrest warrants and the results of immigration proceedings. CIS, a bureau within the Homeland Security Department, is responsible for about 55 million such documents.

GAO also found that, as of July 27, 2006, 14 of CIS' busiest district offices had lost 110,000 A-files. The losses can be attributed to poor training and a lack of emphasis from managers, the report (GAO-07-85) stated.

Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, outgoing chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, outgoing chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requested the report after CIS' predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, granted U.S. citizenship to a suspected terrorist without checking his A-file in 2002. The file indicated ties to a terrorist organization and had been lost, according to Grassley's office.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35568&dcn=todaysnews

[magellan]

1. Isn't this the result with every agency the Repugs retool and rename?

They make the good bad and the bad worse.

[The Straight Story]

2. These idiots could screw up boiling water

And bush probably has on more than one occasion. He is so out of touch with reality he probably thinks the PS3 is something you add to the end of a letter after PS and PS2 :)