Report: Emails Show Worry Of Influence By Official

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Wall Street Journal report says President Barack Obama’s nominee to become the No. 2 official in charge of the Homeland Security Department urged government employees to decide more quickly whether to approve applications from foreign investors in a Las Vegas casino despite concerns about the source of the investment funds.

The newspaper reported Friday that internal emails from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services workers show that agency director Alejandro Mayorkas questioned lower-level decisions to withhold expedited processing for at least 23 applications filed by Chinese and Thai citizens. The newspaper reports that they were trying to invest $11.5 million in the $415 million casino project under the federal EB-5 investor visa program.

Mayorkas’s actions in another case are being investigated by the DHS internal watchdog.