DHS finds staggering fraud in legal immigration cases after enforcement surge in Minnesota

Federal authorities revealed what they called a shocking level of immigration fraud after a major enforcement surge in Minnesota, saying they found problems with nearly half of the cases they investigated.

The fraud spanned a variety of immigration programs, including high-skilled guest workers, student visas, fraudulent marriage and the Biden-era Uniting for Ukraine program.

In one case, they found a man who obtained a fake death certificate for his wife to advance his fraudulent application, despite still being married to her — and having another wife in Sweden.

In another case, they found the son of a known or suspected terrorist still here despite overstaying a visa and having previously engaged in marriage fraud.

“We are declaring war on immigration fraud,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

He said they picked Minneapolis as a first location because of patterns of fraud, but said they’ll take the same effort to other cities.

“Any city should be prepared,” he said.

Mr. Edlow blamed the Biden administration for inviting some of the fraud, particularly with its use of “parole,” an end-run around the usual visa system. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas used parole for a wide range of countries, with special programs for Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Venezuela.

He singled out the Ukraine program, saying they found one person who was single-handedly sponsoring more than 100 migrants, and organizations that were doing “blanket sponsorship” without knowing anything about some of those they were sponsoring.

Mr. Edlow said the Biden administration was “aware” of those issues but “no action was taken.”

The enforcement surge, begun on Sept. 19, was dubbed Operation Twin Shield, and Mr. Edlow said it’s the first time in the agency’s 22-year history that it did this kind of deep-dive on fraud.

It was led by USCIS, the agency that oversees legal immigration applications, and was joined by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More than 1,000 cases with indications of fraud were selected for review and hundreds were identified for follow-up interviews. In 44% of those cases, they ended up establishing evidence of fraud or security risks.

USCIS said it has issued immigration court summonses — effectively starting the deportation process — in 42 of the cases it reviewed, though it expects the number to increase as more investigations are completed.

Mr. Edlow said his agency is exploring whether to revoke or rescind immigration status for some of those identified in the operation.

Experts have long said the legal immigration system is plagued with fraud, but it’s generally been a lower priority as the border and unauthorized immigrants in the interior have dominated the debate.

Mr. Edlow said that has to change.

“You should be expecting the government to go after immigration fraud and benefits fraud the same way that any other fraud is perpetrated against the government,” he said.