The Department of Homeland Security approved refugee applications for several Venezuelan gang members because immigration officers failed to spot their gang tattoos, the Washington Times reported.
Kevin Grigsby, head of refugee operations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said several members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang were approved and made it to the U.S. border before another spotted the tattoos and blocked them from entering, the Times said.
Grigsby ripped employees in an email obtained by the Times.
"Unfortunately, we did not ask about the tattoos during our adjudication or did not identify that the tattoos asked about were consistent with gang membership," he wrote in an email sent Sept. 16.
"The potential entry of suspected gang members into the United States represents a serious public safety concern that we need to make sure we are being vigilant against."
Grigsby ordered employees to be more aggressive in trying to spot gang indicators and said they should not accept weak excuses for why someone may have a gang tattoo.
"The discretionary analysis will almost always lead to a denial, as there would need to be strong and compelling positive factors to overcome the negative factor of approving a suspected gang member to come to the United States who would be a public safety concern," Grigsby wrote.
Grigsby said officers must ask every migrant 14 and older from Venezuela or the Northern Triangle region of Central America, where MS-13 predominates, about their tattoos, the Times reported.
He ordered officers to record a full description of every tattoo in the immigration file and urged them to seek help from experts in determining whether a tattoo is a gang symbol, the Times said.
Immigration experts interviewed by the Times said the mistake was "absurd" and "scandalous."
"It is egregious that the Biden-Harris administration knowingly continues to admit individuals that belong to transnational criminal organizations whose only purpose is to enter the United States and prey on U.S. citizens," Emilio Gonzalez, who ran U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the George W. Bush administration.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.