Corruption plagues the agency that determines the legal status of immigrants, and its employees often don't conduct proper background checks of immigration applicants, a former agency official told lawmakers Thursday.
As a result, "the integrity of the United States immigration system has also been corrupted and the system is incapable of ensuring the security of our homeland," Michael Maxwell said.
"Ours is a system that rewards criminals, facilitates the movement of terrorists, (and) supports foreign agents," said Maxwell, who had been in charge of the Office of Security and Investigations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services until resigning in February.
The agency's director, Emilio Gonzalez, has said that the Homeland Security Department's inspector general will investigate reports of fraud and sloppy procedures. Gonzalez also has insisted that security concerns come first even though the agency is under pressure to get through a backlog of immigration applications.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/06/D8GQMCSG1.html