FBI Bails on Immigrant Probes as Backlogs Mount

Immigration officials are expected to grant green cards to tens of thousands of aliens before required FBI background checks, because the Department of Homeland Security is struggling under a ballooning backlog, McClatchy Newspapers reports. Background checks would be performed after immigrants are granted residency, which could be revoked if problems turn up later.

"It defies the imagination that you can require a security check only to decide that you're going to ignore it," said the head of the Center for Immigration Studies. A  spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security insisted: "We will do nothing that cuts corners or compromises national security." (More Department of Homeland Security stories.)