[JURIST] Former immigration official Michael Maxwell testified about alleged widespread corruption and security vulnerabilities within the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) [official website] before the US House Committee on International Relations on Thursday. Maxwell, who resigned in February as Director of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS complained that because officials within USCIS did not consider his department a priority, it was chronically short-staffed and lacked the resources to investigate allegations of employee corruption [testimony, PDF] and links to espionage and terrorism. He cited 500 criminal complaints filed against the agency for bribery, harboring illegal immigrants and money laundering which have not been fully investigated.

According to Maxwell, senior agency officials ignored or covered up security problems, and his resignation was prompted by retaliation against him when he refused to ignore security vulnerabilities. AP has more.