40 to 50 Percent of All DACA Recipients Are Frauds

According to Matt O’Brien, the former manager for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency’s investigative unit, fraud under Obama’s unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has reached absurd proportions.

In fact, up to half of the 800,000 illegal aliens who benefit under DACA should not be receiving said benefits—they’re frauds who don’t meet the program’s criteria. O’Brien bluntly states:

Based on what I have seen and what I discussed with my colleagues, the fraud rate is 40 to 50 percent. It’s possible that it was higher.

O’Brien mentions that abuse was common in the DACA program from the get-go.

Why?

According to O’Brien, aside from the ideological predilections of certain bureaucrats that doubtlessly had a part to play, the main reason is sloppy governance and artificial timetables that pressured workers into rushing applicants through without proper vetting.







For example, when USCIS employees initially screened DACA applicants, they failed to do thorough reviews “in order to get the DACAs all racked and stacked quickly.”

In cases where red flags were found, O’Brien said USCIS employees generally failed to look into them:

I would say 98 percent of the time [the employees] defaulted to approving them.

Hyperbole or not, there’s no question that fraud in DACA—like most other government programs—is rampant. It’s estimated that some $144 billion worth of taxpayer money was squandered by the government on “improper payments” in 2016. DACA likely suffers from the same pitfalls that breed inefficiency in other government welfare programs.

Now for those of you who haven’t been following DACA closely, here’s a quick recap of what DACA is, and why you should care about abuse:

DACA was an executive order signed by President Obama in June 2012 that allowed all illegal aliens who arrived in America before they were aged 16 to apply for legal work permits, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and made them eligible for earned income tax credits. Enrollment must be renewed every two years.

Since 2012, nearly 800,000 illegal aliens have taken advantage of DACA. Most of them were adults. Essentially, DACA grants participants the rights and privileges normally associated with legal entry into America: it is renewable amnesty.

We should be worried about DACA fraught not just because of its economic consequences, but because we should jealously guard the rights of American citizenship—we should not allow people to bilk their way into becoming Americans. This is not the American way.

Doing so is a betrayal of the rule of law, and our fundamental values.