U.S. immigration officials didn't purposely flout a Texas federal judge's order when they issued roughly 2,000 work permits to immigrants despite being barred from doing so, the Homeland Security Department watchdog said Aug. 13.
The DHS inspector general said it "found no evidence that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services deliberately violated" U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen's preliminary injunction, preventing the implementation of a series of executive actions that President Obama announced in November 2014 that were aimed at expanding certain immigration programs.
Those executive actions included expanding the eligible population for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program – and which extended work authorizations from the current two years to three – and creating the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.
Hanen issued that injunction on Feb. 16, 2015, after 14 states and four governors sued the Obama administration last December. That injunction prevented federal immigration officials from implementing those executive actions. But it was later discovered that USCIS had mistakenly sent more than 2,000 eligible individuals three-year work permits called Employment Authorization Documents, or EADs, after that injunction was issued.
The government notified Hanen of those erroneous EADs on May 7. A month later, Hanen issued an order that said while he was willing to believe the actions were "accidental," he was still "shocked and surprised at the cavalier attitude" regarding the efforts to resolve the issue six weeks after he was notified of the violation.
He had set a hearing Aug. 19 regarding the matter and would hold several officials, including DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, in contempt, if they didn't appear. Hanen later released those officials from appearing but said he would still hold the hearing to provide an update, CNN reported Aug. 11.
The DHS IG was asked to investigate the matter and found "a combination of factors led to the erroneous production and issuance" of those particular EADs, according to a report (pdf). It found that USCIS management didn't provide specific direction to the agency's IT staff regarding EAD production and was also mistaken in what the IT department "was able to do or had done in halting production" of those cards.
"Finally, within IT, we concluded there was a lack of understanding about the consequences of actions taken related to release of the EADs that had been held," the IG report said.
Essentially, when approvals of permitted two-year EADs resumed, it was assumed that the three-year cards were removed from the production queue, the IG explained in a press release (pdf).
"That assumption was incorrect, however, and the allowable 2-year cards approved after the injunction were comingled [sic] with the unallowable 3-year cards being held," the IG said in the release. "Thus, when the cards that had been halted were released for printing, USCIS staff did not realize that both 2-and 3-year employment cards would move forward to be printed and mailed.
Additionally, the IG said it wasn't able to confirm the total number of employment cards erroneously issued after the injunction, meaning the figure could possibly go beyond 2,000.
But the IG said that USCIS did take steps right after Hanen's injunction was issued in February to ensure that no further EADs would be produced. For example, the report cited emails sent at 1:07 a.m. EST and 1:10 a.m. EST that specifically ordered any expansion of the DACA program and issuance of EADs be halted.
USCIS has been contacting DACA recipients who received three-year work permits, requiring them to return the EADs. On July 31, it issued termination notices to those individuals who hadn't complied.
