March 20, 2006

“Sanctions” For Immigration Benefit Fraud? How About D-e-p-o-r-t-a-t-i-o-n!

The recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report – IMMIGRATION BENEFITS: Additional Controls and Sanctions Strategy Could Enhance DHS’s Ability to Control Benefit Fraud (GAO-06-259) [PDF] – reviewed by Bryanna Bevens here on VDARE.com, certainly raises more questions about the ability of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) division to even detect, let alone do anything about, the massive tidal wave of immigration benefit fraud that inundates its service centers, district offices and asylum offices nationwide.

Following the Mohammedan Jihadist attacks of September 11, 2001, the GAO filed reports in 2002 and 2004 attempting to find out exactly what is going on in the way of application fraud detection at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (and now the CIS).

And now, in the third of its latest reports issued March 2006, the GAO again finds that there are STILL no immigration benefit fraud detection or prosecution methods in place at the agency.

So what else is new?

Actually this time around, the GAO gives its own suggestion as to how the folks at DHS could at least create the appearance of stemming the tide of immigration fraud.

GAO says how right on the front page of the report: "Additional controls and a sanctions strategy could enhance DHS's ability to control benefit fraud."

But where the GAO’s kinder and gentler Beltway warriors suggest some form of wrist-slapping "administrative sanctions" against the thousands of legal and illegal aliens who file all manner of phony applications seeking immigration benefits, I have another alternative.

Forget all the bureaucratic saber-rattling over "sanctions." How about DEPORTATION!

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) already takes a dim view of aliens who give false testimony for the purpose of obtaining an immigration benefit, and aliens who file frivolous applications for asylum.

INA Section 101(f) – For the purposes of this Act - No person shall be regarded as, or found to be, a person of good moral character who, during the period for which good moral character is required to be established, is or was . . . (6) one who has given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining any benefits under this Act;

INA Section 208(d)(6) Frivolous applications. - If the Attorney General determines that an alien has knowingly made a frivolous application for asylum and the alien has received the notice under paragraph (4)(A), the alien shall be permanently ineligible for any benefits under this Act, effective as of the date of a final determination on such application.

So why not go one step further and give Summary Removal a chance . . . especially for fraudulent application filers?

How about it, Congress?

Just who is filing all of those fraudulent applications now waiting in the wings anyway?

The pie chart on page 9 of the GAO report (page 13 of the PDF) gives us some clues based on the total number of applications filed with CIS during fiscal year 2005.

According to the application pie chart, here’s what CIS’s adjudicators are doing all day:

Employment authorization applications – 23 percent

Other application types [presumably asylum?] – 19 percent

Spouse and family petitions for permanent residence – 17 percent

Permanent resident petitions for primary applicants – 11 percent

Naturalization applications for U.S. citizenship filed by current permanent residents – 9 percent

Replacement or renewal applications for permanent residence – 9 percent

Non-immigrant worker status – 6 percent

Travel document applications – 6 percent

And guess what–excluding the 9 percent of applications for naturalization, and to be even more than charitable here, excluding another 9 percent of applications for the replacement of resident alien cards (because no illegal alien would file for a “replacement” green card if he didn’t already have a valid card, right?? . . . ), a whopping 82 percent of the applications filed were by aliens without status.

That’s right. The immigration benefit fraud is being committed here by the usual suspects – namely, the same old never-ending flow of lying, cheating, border-jumping, line-cutting, visa over-staying illegal aliens.

These are the uninvited guest workers of tomorrow, dear readers, that is, if their fake, phony fraudulent applications prove to be unsuccessful.

So, by extrapolation, most of the fraudulent applications flooding the CIS’s 33 district offices, 4 service centers and 8 asylum offices non-stop, day after day, are being filed by aliens without legal status already in the United States in the no-lose no-deportation lottery of a lifetime.

And with no controls in place to stop any of it, the CIS’s mega-lottery for millions of illegal aliens continues uninterrupted.

A VDARE.com reader commented on the CIS fraud fiesta via e-mail to me on March 18:

“The DHS is a big lie. We are no more secure today than we were on September 10, 2001. It seems that nobody in our government cares about controlling illegal and/or fraudulent immigration.”

“[The GAO] used the word DISCRETION. We hear that a lot on the border. It really means ‘find a way to let them in . . . We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.’ The burden used to be on the alien to prove that they are admissible. The burden of proof now lies on us to prove they are inadmissible.”

And that’s the way it is . . . but none dare call it a back-door amnesty!

With or without the U.S. Senate’s help with an outright amnesty, the immigration benefit fraud free-for-all behind closed doors in the federal immigration bureaucracy rolls on.

With the burden-of-proof tables now turned, the illegal aliens are running the immigration benefit process ragged.

It’s an Augean stable—and the only answer is a Herculean remedy: mass deportation now.

Juan Mann [email him] is an attorney and the proprietor of DeportAliens.com. He writes a weekly column for VDARE.com and contributes to Michelle Malkin’s Immigration BLOG.