ACLU Sees Discrimination in a Secret Program; Backers Cite Terror Threats to U.S.
A previously undisclosed program to identify people with terrorist ties who are trying to become naturalized citizens has indefinitely delayed applications of thousands of legal U.S. residents, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
Egyptian-born Tarek Hamdi holds his U.S. naturalization certificate in 2012. He first applied in 2001, was rejected years later and then won in court.
Established in 2008, the Department of Homeland Security's Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, or CARRP, uses information kept by law-enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to determine whether an individual is a “national security concern,” according to government documents obtained by the ACLU through Freedom of Information Act requests and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The ACLU said the program casts an overly wide net and discriminates against people based on national origin and religion. For example, it ensnares applicants who simply attended a mosque subjected to law-enforcement surveillance, the ACLU said.
Program defenders said it was justified at a time when the U.S. faces unprecedented terrorist threats.
Chris Bentley, press secretary of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency that reviews citizenship applications, said in a statement that the “USCIS has no information that the intelligence received from the national-security databases or background checks is the product of discrimination.”
The ACLU and immigration attorneys also said the USCIS had created extra guidelines to determine who is eligible for citizenship, going beyond the rules set by Congress.
Mr. Bentley countered that reviews were conducted “in compliance with immigration laws and with a steadfast commitment to maintaining the integrity of the immigration process.”
More than a dozen members of the House and Senate supplied with the ACLU report said through their aides that they weren't available to comment.
Kenneth Palinkas, president of the union that represents immigration adjudicators, said the ACLU “does not recognize the dire need for a vetting process that maintains the national security of the United States.”
Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who served as chief adviser to former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on immigration law, said the Boston Marathon bombing proved the need for more scrutiny of any applicants for immigration benefits.
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the ACLU minimizes the threats the U.S. faces.
But Jennie Pasquarella, the ACLU attorney on the team that uncovered the policy, said, “The program has created secret exclusions.” She added, “Before we learned about CARRP, we were seeing patterns of delays and denials, but nobody understood what was behind this.”
Those denied citizenship under CARRP are allowed to remain in the U.S. as legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, because being labeled a national-security concern doesn't make someone deportable.
Under criteria for identifying national-security concerns, a CARRP training manual dated April 2009 lists “travel through or residence in areas of known terrorist activity;” being a “close associate” to a subject of concern; and being a member or participant in organizations that engage in suspect activities, according to the FOIA documents.
Once deemed a national-security concern, an individual's application is placed on a CARRP track for further scrutiny, rather than the normal review process; an application subjected to CARRP can't be approved unless the agency is satisfied there is no longer a security concern, according to the documents. In practice, that can lead to prolonged, even indefinite, delays, the ACLU said.
“Your file goes into a black hole, and you're stuck unless you have the money to hire a lawyer to sue the government,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney in Alaska who taught national-security law at West Point and has reviewed the program.
The agency issues denials, according to Ms. Pasquarella, based on “pretextual reasons,” such as claims that applicants made inaccurate statements about their address, employment or educational credentials, to prove lack of the required good moral character.
The USCIS wouldn't comment further on the program.
Ms. Pasquarella said that after the ACLU detected a pattern of Muslim applicants facing years-long delays or unexpected denials, it began in 2010 to seek information from the government about its adjudication process through FOIA requests and litigation on behalf of such clients as Egyptian-born Tarek Hamdi. Mr. Hamdi, who moved to the U.S. at age 18, said he applied for citizenship in 2001 after being a legal resident for nearly 25 years.
In a copy of his naturalization application requesting his affiliations, Mr. Hamdi listed mosques in his current and previous hometowns, along with a school board and his employment history as a construction supervisor.
After a routine appointment at a USCIS branch for fingerprinting, Mr. Hamdi, now 54, said that months turned into years of waiting for an interview with the agency, the final step before a decision is made.
In late 2008, he was granted an interview at the USCIS office in San Bernardino, Calif. In March 2009, he sued the USCIS, saying it had exceeded the 120-day statutory limit for issuing a decision. The U.S. district court ordered a decision by June. That month, Mr. Hamdi received a decision, a denial letter from the agency that stated in part that “you failed to reveal your affiliation with the Benevolence International Foundation.…”
In 2002, the U.S. shut down that Chicago-based Islamic nonprofit. Its leader admitted he had concealed from donors that a material portion of donations were used to support fighters abroad, according to a plea agreement. In 2000, Mr. Hamdi said, he had been among a group of people who together had donated $8,000 to the charity.
Mr. Hamdi appealed, but a few months later, the agency affirmed its previous decision to deny citizenship on the same grounds.
The USCIS declined to comment on specific citizenship cases.
In 2010, the ACLU sued the USCIS on Mr. Hamdi's behalf in federal district court in Riverside, Calif. Following a trial in February 2012, a federal judge said the denial was unfounded and ruled that he was eligible to be naturalized under the law. She personally swore him in during May 2012.
Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 21, 2013, on page A4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Citizenship Agency Faulted for Delays.
Source: Wall Street Journal
