The Homeland Security Department maintains fingerprints of every foreigner who enters the country to help prevent fraud, but 825,000 of those records appear to be associated with multiple individuals, according to internal investigators. The sheer number of discrepancies raises questions about how many immigrants intentionally are faking their identities to evade authorities versus falling victim to poor typing. Frank Deffer, a DHS assistant inspector general, noted some of the mismatches in the department’s fingerprint database were tied to individuals with rap sheets. The identification tool is the responsibility of the US-VISIT immigration program.
Security Debrief is a blog dedicated to homeland security, terrorism and counter-terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement that provides context to the debates, policies and politics that are playing out in Washington, D.C.
