T5 B6 Crs Report Fdr- Entire Contents- Crs And Cusa Reports- 1st Pgs For Reference 194

Order Code RL32366

CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web

Terrorist Identification, Screening, and Tracking Under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6

April 21, 2004

William J. Krouse Analyst in Social Legislation Domestic Social Policy Division

Congressional Research Service <» The Library of Congress

Interview! and Adjudications

Page 1 of 95

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III.

Interviews and Adjudications

A. Introduction At the heart of the congressional allegations was also the question of whether, for any reason, INS had watered down the criteria by which it evaluated an applicant for naturalization. In this chapter we address those concerns and examine the naturalization evaluation process and the standards by which INS adjudicators evaluated naturalization applications during CUSA. Contrary to some allegations, the evidence does not indicate that INS purposefully rescinded eligibility standards during CUSA. However, we found that INS' application of eligibility standards was already inconsistent—and known to be so—before it launched CUSA, and INS officials did nothing to improve the known weaknesses before the program began. INS failed to provide its adjudicative corps with appropriate guidance concerning issues bearing on the determination of eligibility for naturalization both before and during CUSA. Thus, when INS augmented its adjudication workforce with hastily trained new officers, and the pressure to complete cases intensified, these weaknesses became more pronounced. This, in conjunction with INS' failure to ensure that the officers had the tools they needed to ensure a quality adjudication—like applicant files and results of criminal history checks, as discussed in subsequent chapters—led to a processing system during fiscal year 1996 that was deeply flawed. The flaws in that processing system were all ones that tended to make adjudications more superficial. Brief training prevented new adjudicators from examining applications in great detail, even if they had been provided the time to extend the length of naturalization interviews. The lack of adjudicative guidance concerning more complex issues prevented those issues from being adequately explored. Since issues in an applicant's background that could potentially lead to disqualification often could only be revealed as a result of greater exploration, where that exploration was curtailed the issues would simply not arise. Thus, although not a deliberate goal of the program, naturalization processing during CUSA was more heavily weighted in favor of approval, not denial, of applications for naturalization. We note at the outset that it is impossible to quantify the number of CUSA eligibility determinations that were affected by the deficiencies we describe in this chapter concerning naturalization interviews and adjudications. We cannot establish how many applicants who were approved for naturalization would have been found ineligible had better training, better guidance, and better tools been available. Although audits can—and have—revealed the extent to which objective measures like disqualifying criminal histories were ignored,^1 no amount of after-the-fact study can determine what might have been revealed to a fully trained, supervised adjudicator who had the opportunity to conduct an interview of sufficient length and depth. Accordingly, we focus on the degree to which the system that was in place failed to safeguard naturalization integrity, and do not offer evidence of the exact extent to which particular adjudications was incorrect. We begin this chapter by describing the interview and adjudication process. We then describe some of the adjudication practices that existed prior to fiscal year 1996 in order to provide a benchmark against which to measure the changes that occurred specifically during CUSA. We then turn to interviews and adjudications during CUSA. We offer a detailed review of INS' training of the temporary adjudications officers it hired to meet the goals of CUSA. The evidence shows that the training program was designed to prepare new officers to adjudicate simple, prescreened cases in an environment of ample supervision. However, the evidence also shows that

http://www.usdoj .gov/oig/special/0007/interviews.htm

6/10/2004