Pentagon finds 'security risks' in immigrant recruitment

Photo: AP

The Department of Defense investigators have found "potential security risks" in a Pentagon program consisting of over 10,000 foreign-born people into the U.S. armed forces. This began in the Obama debacle in 2009 and was just now discovered. Sources on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon have expressed alarm over "foreign infiltration" and enrollees now unaccounted for.

Thank you Barack Obama.

To be fair to Barack, however, the program was first created in the final weeks of the Bush-Cheny administration.

The investigation began over a year ago and the Pentagon's inspector general recently issued a report. It's actual contents remain classified, but its existence has been revealed for the first time exclusively to Fox News, because they aren't CNN.

The report identifies serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Defense (MAVNI), a DoD program that gives immigrants and non-immigrant aliens an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

The program is still active but new applications have been suspended. MAVNI was designed to recruit people with foreign-language and other skills deemed useful by the Pentagon and in short supply. It has been successful at times and MAVNI recruits out-perform non-MAVNI soldiers in critical areas, but there have been recent management concerns.

"The lack of discipline in implementation of this program has created problems elsewhere," Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK) said. Russell is a retired Army officer and sits on the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel and he was the person who first sounded the alarm.

During the markup of the latest defense authorization bill, on June 28, Russell noted: "The program has been replete with problems, to include foreign infiltration--so much so that the Department of Defense is seeking to suspend the program due to these concerns."

Army Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick, a Pentagon spokesman, told Fox News that the program has been "compromised." There are missing enrollees of the program. "Where are they? What do they know? Where are they serving? What are their numbers?" he said.

"The Department of Defense is conducting a review of the MAVNI pilot program due to potential security risks associated with the program," Haverstick said.

Several foreign-born MAVNI enrollees have filed a lawsuit filed in February against Defense Secretary James Mattis. The lawsuit alleged that an upper echelon decision in September to tighten up access to security clearances issued through MAVNI had the effect of "crippling their military careers."

While it also protected the U.S. from seditious activity, but the suit doesn't mention that little aspect.

Some of MAVNI's problems include a vetting jam-up the allowed the enrollment of many foreign-born soldiers prior to the completion of their background checks, and a "drift" in the program's criteria--drivers, mechanics and cooks, who didn't possess the specialized skills the program was created to exploit, were hired. 

Some lawmakers received classified briefings on the situation and sources say that some of the countries of origin for MAVNI enrollees are "of concern" but so far there's no evidence that ISIS, Al Qaeda or any of the myriad terrorist groups have penetrated MAVNI.

But the chances are likely "very good to great."

Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, a Fox News military analyst said that "ISIS has always had the desire to use migration as a way to penetrate into countries. They have done that successfully in Europe because of open borders, mass immigration with no vetting. In the U.S., we haven't had any record of their penetration. And certainly if this program is compromised and there's a possibility of that kind of penetration, it's got to be thoroughly investigated."

So the question is: are we giving the keys to the henhouse to the wolves?



Tweet