The recently released report from the Government Accountability Office that calculates the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens contains a shocking revelation: Three of the men on a national security list of aliens convicted of terrorism or related offenses landed citizenship after their convictions. The news is buried on page 33 of the 71-page report, and GAO puts the best gloss on the revelation that it can.
But it doesn't change the unwelcome news that even after an alien is convicted for an offense related to terrorism, the U.S. government, this time in the person of President Barack Hussein Obama, will confer citizenship.
Details
GAO's lengthy report revealed the massive increase in the number of aliens in American prisons during the last five years. The population of aliens in federal prisons increased by 4,000 to 55,000, or about 7 percent. The number of criminal aliens in state prisons jumped 33 percent to about 300,000. "Criminal alien" means any foreigner who is not a citizen, whether he is in the country legally or illegally.
The cost of housing and feeding these criminals is astounding, the GAO found:
We estimated that selected operating costs (i.e., correctional officer salaries, medical care, food service, and utilities) associated with incarcerating criminal aliens in our nation’s state prison systems totaled $7 billion from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2009. These costs ranged from about $736 million in 2003 to $1.1 billion in 2009, about a 56 percent increase.
The report also breaks down the cost of incarcerating aliens for states such as California and Arizona, which are literally suffocating under the weight of illegal aliens who not only commit crimes but also require those states to spend astronomical sums on education, welfare, and free medical care.
Three "Citizens"
But the report's 33rd page contains what may be the most interesting revelation. Three aliens on a list of those convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related crimes received citizenship after their convictions.
According to the GAO:
Based upon our analysis of [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] and [Department of Justice] data, three of the individuals on the DOJ list received U.S. citizenship after their convictions. Two were convicted of unlawful production of an identity document and one was convicted of transferring funds out of the country in violation of U.S. sanctions.
According to USCIS documentation, in all three cases
• the convictions were outside of the statutory period, were not aggravated felonies, and resulted in no prison time for the defendants;
• all required background checks were conducted and resolved with appropriate law enforcement agencies; and
• no national security, public safety, or other grounds of ineligibility existed.
But, the GAO reports, real Americans had nothing to worry about. Despite the convictions, "USCIS determined that each of these individuals were [sic] able to demonstrate good moral character within the required period of time and met all other requirements for naturalization."
The GAO did not name the three, but they can be found, Rep. Steve King reported, on a list titled "National Security Division Statistics on Unsealed International Terrorism and Terrorism-Related Convictions 9/11/01 – 3/18/10." King, a Republican from Iowa, is Vice Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Policy Enforcement.
As The New American reported just yesterday, the production of phony documents in the United States is a major criminal enterprise and potentially lethal trade, and the 9/11 Commission report contained evidence that the hijackers who brought down the World Trade Center, hit the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania had transferred large sums of money all around the world.
Many of those small transactions, the report stated, "were essentially invisible amid the billions of dollars flowing daily across the globe."
