UPDATE 1-Canada government has trouble detecting citizenship fraud - watchdog

(Adds government reaction)
By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA, May 3 (Reuters) - Canada's government is not doing
enough to weed out fraudulent citizenship applications and this
means ineligible people can obtain Canadian passports, the
country's top watchdog said on Tuesday.
The findings could alarm U.S. critics already worried by
what they say are the security risks posed by the new Liberal
government's decision to quickly accept 25,000 Syrian refugees
after taking power last November.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson said his officials had
discovered many problems in the Immigration, Refugees and
Citizenship (IRC) department, which is responsible for ensuring
only eligible individuals become Canadian nationals.
"We found that (IRC) was not adequately detecting and
preventing fraud in the citizenship program," the audit
concluded, adding officials lacked a systematic method of
identifying and documenting fraud risks.
"People were granted citizenship based on incomplete
information or without all of the necessary checks being done,"
it said. The audit covered the period from July 2014 to October
2015, when the former Conservative government was in charge.
More than 260,000 people became Canadian citizens in 2014,
an all-time record high. Canada has a population of 36 million.
The system is supposed to weed out anyone convicted of
serious offenses, those with faked residency papers or people
who have concluded marriages of convenience.
But Ferguson said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the
border security agency were not consistently sharing data about
criminal charges and potential residency fraud.
For example, one address was not identified as a problem
even though it had been used over a seven-year period by at
least 50 applicants, seven of whom were granted citizenship.
John McCallum, the government minister in charge of the IRC,
said the department was already boosting efforts to detect fraud
and had reviewed the cases flagged by Ferguson.
"We've opened investigations toward possible citizenship
revocation from about a dozen individuals," he said in a
statement.
As of January 2016, IRC had about 700 revocation cases
pending. The department has responsibility for refugees and
coordinated the operation to accept the 25,000 Syrian refugees.
In February, the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee
probed the effort, citing the possibility that militants could
sneak in and then cross the U.S.-Canada border.
Congressional aides say U.S. officials remain wary of
Canada's screening, noting it is virtually impossible for
foreign governments to verify the backgrounds and identities of
refugees.
At the time, Canadian officials defended what they said was
a very strong security system.