Your Homeland Security Department

Joe and Dara linked to this Washington Post story about a murder in their neighborhood, but since I work with immigration, another story in the Metro section today caught my eye.

A Department of Homeland Security supervisor has been charged with falsifying immigration documents to help Asian immigrants obtain U.S. citizenship, officials said yesterday.

Robert T. Schofield was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his Fairfax County office, where he is a supervisor for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes immigration applications.

Over the past decade, the government investigated "numerous allegations of bribery involving Schofield and Asian immigration applicants" when he worked at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. Schofield was demoted at one point for "conduct unbecoming a government employee,'' the documents say, and had an "inappropriate relationship" with a woman connected to an INS criminal probe.

When confronted about that relationship by INS officials, Schofield fled to East Asia, where he made $36,000 worth of unauthorized purchases on his government-issued credit card, according to court documents.

It was unclear when Schofield returned to the United States, how the previous investigations ended and how Schofield became a supervisor when the new Department of Homeland Security took over INS's functions in 2003. Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen would not comment on Schofield's employment history.

So let me get this straight. A man can be investigated for bribery, get demoted, flee the country to avoid charges, run up a credit card at taxpayers' expense, return to the U.S., and get his job back (possibly a promotion)? And this all happens under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, the people who are supposed to be keeping us safe? Granted immigration, like FEMA, should never have been put in Homeland Security in the first place, but this still doesn't give me any confidence in how the department is run.