Under continuing fire from Republicans, the Immigration and Naturalization Service says no more than 1,300 people with criminal records - not 50,000 - may have become naturalized U.S. citizens improperly in the past year.
The agency is manually reviewing each naturalization case for which the FBI has some criminal information, and the number is preliminary, Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said.Meissner, announcing at a news conference that the INS deported a record 67,094 illegal aliens last year, criticized "the exaggerations and mischaracterizations" that have surrounded a citizenship drive that began last year.
The FBI delivered nearly 51,000 criminal histories of people naturalized between August 1995 and September 1996 to a House subcommittee on Monday. Meissner said, however, that only a small fraction of the histories contain criminal information and the number of files to be checked further was 1,300.
Still, Rep. William Clinger, R-Pa., said the Government Reform and Oversight Committee he chairs has discovered that "many individuals have been granted citizenship even though they have been charged with serious crimes, in particular, spousal abuse and murder, the disposition of which remains unresolved."
Rep. Bill Zeliff, R-N.H., chairman of the panel's national security subcommittee, said he was "outraged" to learn of initial findings regarding California. "There are many questions to be answered," he said.
Nearly half of the 1996 deportations, 30,138, were from California; 11,741 were from Texas, 9,154 from Arizona and 16,061 from other states, the INS said. California's deportation breakdown was 13,707 for criminal records and 16,431 for noncriminal reasons.
Three of every four deportees were from Mexico.
Gov. Pete Wilson said the deportations from California were only 24 percent of the illegal immigrants arriving each year.
"It is inconceivable for the Clinton administration to tout this as an accomplishment, when it is in fact losing the battle against illegal immigration," Wilson said.