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In fighting visa fraud, nothing beats the personal touch.

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  • In fighting visa fraud, nothing beats the personal touch.

    Los Angeles Times

    latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig-fraud7-2010feb 07,0,7555071.story

    In fighting visa fraud, nothing beats the personal touch

    U.S. is using new technology and better cooperation between agencies
    to detect false applications, but face-to-face visits are the best way
    to catch a fraudulent claim.

    By Teresa Watanabe
    February 7, 2010


    The immigration investigator was polite but persistent as he
    approached the leasing agent at a five-story office building in El
    Monte. Where is Suite 105? Can I see it? Where is the person who
    established the business?

    The leasing agent paused. The businessman was trying to set up the
    office a year ago, she said, but he never did. Actually, she added, he
    used the place only as a mailing address.

    Bingo. According to immigration official Rand L. Gallagher, the visit
    confirmed his suspicions that the Chinese national in question had
    filed a fraudulent application for a business visa. The visa petition
    claimed the El Monte office housed employees who were going to start a
    U.S. subsidiary of an import-export parent company in China.

    But "Suite 105" turned out to be a tiny side room inside the leasing
    office, with no workers and no evidence of a business operation.

    "There's a lot of covering up going on," said Gallagher, who heads the
    western operations of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services'
    anti-fraud unit. "I doubt the guy was even here."

    Increased site visits like the recent trip to El Monte are a key tool
    in the federal government's newly aggressive fight against immigration
    fraud. The visits are to expand to as many as 25,000 this fiscal year
    from 5,000 last year, according to Alejandro N. Mayorkas, director of
    the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

    Site visits are required for each application for a religious worker
    visa after a 2006 internal review found a 33% fraud rate. The expanded
    site visit program will focus on applicants for a skilled worker visa
    known as H-1B. Applications in that visa category were found to have
    a 21% rate of fraud or technical violations in a 2008 internal review.

    Investigators have found applicants for skilled worker or managerial
    visas working at convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and video
    shops. They have discovered bogus firms, as in the El Monte case. They
    have documented exaggerated claims, such as an Armenian flower shop in
    Glendale that asserted the need to bring in a foreign worker as a
    full-time accountant when the business, on inspection, turned out to
    be far too small to need one.

    "I'd be happy to find that everything was legitimate, but that's not
    the real world," said Gallagher, who has investigated immigration
    fraud for 14 years and previously served as an intelligence analyst,
    interrogator and linguist in the U.S. Air Force. "The reality is that
    there are many people who exploit our agency. . . . We're trying to
    make sure we give benefits to people who actually deserve them."

    Some fear, however, that the aggressive anti-fraud effort is having
    unintended negative consequences. Robert P. Deasy, a spokesman for the
    American Immigration Lawyers Assn., said many of his organization's
    business clients are complaining that denial rates for visa
    applications appear to be on the rise even for legitimate applicants.

    Although immigration officials could not provide overall denial rates,
    a government study last year found they doubled for religious worker
    petitions, to 60% in fiscal year 2007 from 31% the previous year.

    In addition, Deasy said, many of his members are concerned that the
    government is contracting out site visits to people whom they view as
    inadequately trained in immigration law.

    "We're seeing a whole lot of employer heartburn," Deasy said.

    The federal push on immigration fraud began after a 2002 study by
    government auditors found that immigration fraud was "pervasive and
    significant" and that immigration officials were poorly equipped to
    fight it.

    The report expressed alarm that criminals were increasingly using the
    application process to gain legal entry into the U.S. for narcotics
    trafficking, terrorism and other illegal activity.

    Since then, the government has increased resources and reorganized its
    anti-fraud operations, including the 2004 establishment of the Office
    of Fraud Detection and National Security to find false claims
    involving marriage petitions, work visas, green card renewals and
    other immigration benefits. Gallagher heads the nation's largest
    regional program, which is based in Laguna Niguel and covers
    California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.

    In the last six years, the number of anti-fraud officers nationwide
    has grown from 100 to 600. Offices have been established in Mexico and
    Germany, with others being considered for the Philippines, China,
    India and South Korea.

    The number of fraud leads investigated has jumped from 2,620 in 2005
    to 31,827 last year.

    And the fraud office's budget has swelled to $95 million in fiscal
    year 2009, up from about $20 million five years earlier. To help fund
    the operations, Congress approved a $500 "fraud fee" on certain
    business visa applications, raising millions of dollars a year for
    investigators in the Homeland Security, Labor and State departments.

    Addressing a key criticism in the 2002 report, officials have created
    a national case management system to allow investigators to share
    information across state lines.

    That system allowed Gallagher and his staff to learn that one Southern
    California man suspected of business visa fraud had moved to South
    Carolina and was trying to win legal status through marriage to a
    U.S. citizen.

    The couple withdrew their petition in November after an immigration
    officer found in an interview that the Chinese suspect and African
    American woman were 15 years apart in age, did not speak each other's
    native language and shared no common address. His green card
    application was denied in November and he has been ordered to appear
    before an immigration judge.

    New technology, including an enhanced computer system with expanded
    access to databases, has also aided the fight against fraud, Gallagher
    said.

    For green card renewals, for instance, officers can now see the photos
    and other biographical information in the original application to scan
    for potential fraud. That advance has helped keep fraud rates low for
    green card replacements -- less than 1%, according to an internal
    review.

    "We are by no means less vigilant than we were in 2002," Mayorkas
    said. "But our vigilance is far better equipped than it was then."

    Mayorkas added that better collaboration with other agencies has also
    helped the anti-fraud effort. In Los Angeles, the immigration services
    and customs and enforcement agencies have collaborated to break some
    major fraud cases. But site visits have proved to be one of the
    biggest keys to success, Gallagher said. An applicant's paperwork can
    raise red flags: A new subsidiary claiming it needs four or five
    foreign managers, for instance, will probably be scrutinized.

    But nothing clinches a case like face-to-face encounters,
    investigators say. Once, Gallagher drove out to a north Los Angeles
    County community to visit a supposed applicant for a managerial visa.

    Instead, he found a farmer loading fruit and vegetables into a trailer
    who knew nothing about the visa petition.

    His name had been used by a man whom officials ultimately found had
    filed more than a dozen fraudulent visa petitions.

    U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who has led the fight for
    tougher anti-fraud efforts, praised the progress that has been made
    but cautioned that the problem was a "vicious cycle that never really
    ends."

    [email protected]
    Co pyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
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