How much real immigration fraud is there?

[yankeelimer 1]

When I speak of fraud I mean of the fake marriage variety, with the sponsoring citizen being paid for their cooperation in filing for permanent residency and eventually citizenship. Where there is no relationship and no intent to have one, just a business arrangement.

There is similar fraud in the HB1 employment visa where a "front company" is established that applies for HB1s for unskilled applicants simply to allow them to come to the USA. You can read about one such case here http://ems.gmnews.com/news/2008-06-18/front_page/008.html

Every single case I have read about marriage fraud in the media, and heard about anecdotally involved the citizen doing it MULTIPLE times. Often waiting until the bare minimum time period(2 years for the USA) to get a non-conditional permanent residency and then getting legally divorced and then starting the whole thing over again. This would seem to be obvious as day to notice and pay special attention to, the pattern should speak for itself.

The same for the HB1 fraud, a pattern should quickly establish itself.

I tried to find some solid claims, I found a claim about the HB1 here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Fraud_by_Employers_and_Applicants

The U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES "H-1B Benefit Fraud & Compliance Assessment" of September 2008 concluded 21% of H1-B visa granted originate from fraudulent applications or applications with technical violations.[47] Fraud was defined as a willful misrepresentation, falsification, or omission of a material fact. Technical violations, errors, omissions, and failures to comply that are not within the fraud definition were included in the 21% rate. Subsequently, USCIS has made procedural changes to reduce the number of fraud and technical violations on H-1B applications.

But the problem is they lump clerical errors into outright criminal fraud, I'm sure it inflates the numbers greatly. I can find no claims on finance/marriage visa numbers.

I honestly wonder what the true uninflated numbers are, and how much is misconception. I would be cool to see any statements by actual agents or officers on what they have personally experienced.

[TBoneTX 45,288]

Idea: telephone your local ICE office and ask for the Press Officer or Public Relations Officer. You should be given the figures or directed to an authoritative source, si man.

[ScottThuy 140]

any fraud IMO is too much

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20060809/ai_n16658980/

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Agents-arrest-4-suspects-in-visa-fraud-case-1161564.php

http://beta2.tbo.com/news/metro/2008/may/17/na-authorities-break-up-immigrant-marriage-fraud-r-ar-145048/

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_jihadis_marriage_fraud_scam_iCj3GkDvQHmxATUMP8VTrJ

[yankeelimer 1]

I found a very interesting article from 2008 about marriage based immigration here:

http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/3595/marrying-for-love

It starts off fairly bland and uninformed, but read the whole thing it has some good info from actual officers. It contains the claim that one third of applicants are rejected as shams, but then it also says a senior immigration officer testified before congress in 1986 that a third of such cases are scams, but then admits his figures were fraudulent.

I'm interested in this because it is given such emphasis, but there doesn't appear to be hard numbers.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I've lived in California for over 30 years. In that time I've been asked to help someone immigrate by marriage 5 times. In each case, I was offered money. The most I was offered was nearly $30K.

I didn't hang around in immigrant communities, nor did I have a lot of immigrant friends. These were people I met casually, either through work or other friends. They didn't know me very long or very well when they asked me. If I was seen as a potential collaborator then I can only imagine how many times someone would be asked if they spent a lot of time with immigrants.

Some of my friends have also admitted to being asked to help someone immigrate for money. They seem to focus on people who seem like they might be likely to be persuaded with an offer of cash. After my income reached the middle class level I was never asked again. This is why a petitioner with a borderline income might be a red flag in a high fraud country.

The problem is huge. The only hard numbers are going to be from cases where the immigrant got away with it initially, and was caught later. Consulates routinely deny because they believe a relationship is a sham, but those cases don't get far enough for anyone to find out for certain.

[ScottThuy 140]

I've lived in California for over 30 years. In that time I've been asked to help someone immigrate by marriage 5 times. In each case, I was offered money. The most I was offered was nearly $30K.

I didn't hang around in immigrant communities, nor did I have a lot of immigrant friends. These were people I met casually, either through work or other friends. They didn't know me very long or very well when they asked me. If I was seen as a potential collaborator then I can only imagine how many times someone would be asked if they spent a lot of time with immigrants.

Some of my friends have also admitted to being asked to help someone immigrate for money. They seem to focus on people who seem like they might be likely to be persuaded with an offer of cash. After my income reached the middle class level I was never asked again. This is why a petitioner with a borderline income might be a red flag in a high fraud country.

The problem is huge. The only hard numbers are going to be from cases where the immigrant got away with it initially, and was caught later. Consulates routinely deny because they believe a relationship is a sham, but those cases don't get far enough for anyone to find out for certain.

Dont feel bad.. A friend asked me if I was really happy with my now wife.. before we filed because he would pay me 30k to bring his cousin... not worth jail and or 250k fine IMO... and I love my wife so much it was never an option anyway... in total I was asked by two people.... so its not just westcoast