Senate Republicans and a Department of Homeland Security watchdog are aghast that a DHS official believed a terror suspect sought by federal agents could receive “safe harbor” at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services facility.
“This is a classic example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing in the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a Friday statement.
The day after the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., Homeland Security Investigations agents went to USCIS field office in order to detain a suspected accomplice of the shooters. USCIS staff and security refused to let them enter, the DHS office of the inspector general confirmed in an audit released on Thursday evening.
The senior USCIS official at the office wrongly believed that people who come to the facility for an immigration hearing are eligible for shelter from federal agents. “Contrary to the Field Office Director’s statement to agents at the time, and to OIG during her interview, there is no ‘safe harbor’ against arrest at USCIS or any other federal facility,” the inspector general’s report said.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., criticized the “dangerous lack of coordination” demonstrated by the controversy. “Congress created the DHS to unify and improve coordination among agencies in defending our homeland,” he said in response to the IG report. “What happened in the San Bernardino USCIS field office on Dec. 3 shows that work remains.”
Johnson uncovered the controversy after whistleblowers told him about the field office director’s actions, which gave rise to fears that DHS officials would retaliate against whomever talked to Congress.
The inspector general found “no evidence” of an attempt to retaliate, but the report suggested that the field office director misled investigators by falsely claiming that she didn’t know the agents were seeking a terror suspect.
On the one hand, the field office director claimed that she learned of a possible connection between the hearing attendees and the San Bernardino attack while reviewing the immigration file. At another point, she claimed that one of the agents told her what they were seeking during a meeting to discuss the initial delay.
“Either version is contradicted by the building security officer, who said he told the Field Office Director of the purpose behind the agents’ arrival when he first notified her,” the audit said.
