Posts tagged “Immigration Fraud”

In many cases, the promise of the shady visa consultant or agent is simple: pay a fee, follow the instructions, and the visa or the status will be approved. The problem is that the instructions often involve exaggerating qualifications, submitting fabricated evidence, or making outright false statements to U.S. immigration authorities. While the agent may collect a substantial fee and move on to the next client, it is the applicant who ultimately bears the consequences.

Over the years, immigration fraud has taken many forms. One example involved the AzTech/Wireclass/Findream OPT scheme, in which individuals were provided with fictitious employment or training arrangements designed to maintain immigration status and create the appearance of lawful employment or training. When these schemes were uncovered, USCIS, ICE, and the Department of State frequently focused not only on the organizers but also on the participants. The problem is that many of those individuals were misled and unwitting participants, particularly in the early years of 2015-2018 when such schemes were not well-known or understood to involve fraud. Yet many of those individuals now find themselves facing visa refusals, findings of fraud or misrepresentation under INA §212(a)(6)(C)(i), removal proceedings, or long-term immigration consequences.

Fair is fair, right? Consular officers can and do impose permanent bars for an alleged misrepresentation in a visa application form or entry to the United States from 5, 10, 20, 25 years ago. For example, we have seen some crazy decisions at visa interviews based on a supposed misrepresentation made to an airport inspector decades ago about their true intent — triggered by application of the so-called 90-day rule. But on the flip side, did you know that there are no time limitations on when you may challenge a consular visa decision to permanently bar you from the United States? If the visa decision made to permanently bar you for a misrepresentation, alien smuggling, or conviction of a crime of moral turpitude was made last week, last year, last decade, or even 35 years ago and it was wrong then, it is wrong — and continues to wreak havoc…

In Part 1, we described the materials recently received from a Freedom of Information Act request to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The materials are not only eye-opening but indeed shocking: they show that the students were let down by delinquent government and university actors that failed to warn them of the scam. Most mind-boggling: the US government is now using its own delinquency as a sword against these students in permanently barring them from the United States and using shell-game tactics to make it is as difficult as possible to challenge the bars. Here, we provide additional details from those ICE reports: The Homeland Security Investigations Wilmington office identified approximately 1,925 STEM OPT students associated with AzTech. HSI administratively arrested 15 STEM OPT students. (An administrative arrest is the arrest of a foreign individual for a civil — not criminal — violation of U.S. immigration laws. These cases are then…

Last week we began the list of the top 15 trends and observations relating to the consular imposition of permanent bars under Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) for willful, material misrepresentations. Hopefully, this will inform and educate as you plan for future visa applications. Here, we continue that list: 6. OPT Fraud. Much ink and many tears have been shed over the OPT scandal, with the full impact only now being felt. Starting in 2020, thousands of individuals have been permanently barred from the US for their association with scam OPT companies, such as Findream, AZTech, Integra, Wireclass, and Global IT Experts. More can be read about this scandal on our blogs, but suffice to say that the consequences will be felt for the rest of the lives of not only these individuals, but close family members and American employers as well. Instead of being able to live the American dream, these talented…

Yesterday, ICE announced the arrests of 15 OPT students for claiming “to be employed by companies that don’t exist." At its press conference, ICE announced that as a part of its Operation OPTical Illusion, it identified up to 3,300 individuals of interest, and of those individuals, it will seek to deport 1,100. Of the 1,100, USCIS is in the process of revoking the employment authorizations of 700, with the remainder expected to have the validity periods lapse in the next couple of months. These employment authorizations were characterized as being “fraudulently” obtained and seem to have been connected with one company. Obviously, this is not good news for the 1,100. While it is still too early to draw conclusions, it is possible that ICE not only intends to remove these individuals from the United States, but permanently bar them from the United States for engaging in “fraudulent” activity. Apparently, ICE considers…