The , Department of Homeland Security , is reinstating a Biden administration plan that allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees outside the United States to pass normal , immigration , practices and journey into the region despite an internal inspection that revealed rampant , scams.
” As part of an internal evaluation of the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela pardon techniques, DHS has incorporated more screening of U. S. based followers to , improve the integrity of the procedures”, the DHS said in a statement Thursday evening.
With these updated rules in place, DHS will continue issuing new Advance Travel Authorizations and will closely monitor how this new process is progressing, according to the DHS.
The Citizenship and Immigration Services’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, as well as Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center, have worked together over the past two months to implement tougher vetting protocols.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which found that an internal government audit documented a large number of fraudulent applications as the U.S. admitted nearly half a million immigrants from four nations, led the DHS to suspend the CHNV program.
Since applicants must have a sponsor in the United States, the enhanced vetting now includes “further scrutiny” of supporters ‘ financial records and criminal histories and looks at potential fraudulent supporter profiles. Additionally, it includes new review techniques to identify” serial filing trends.”
The DHS did not specify whether anyone had been referred for prosecution or how such widespread fraud had been allowed to start in the first place. Instead, the agency stated that those who were found to have committed fraud before July would be referred to law enforcement for possible prosecution.
” DHS has temporarily halted the issuance of advanced travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while conducting a review of supporter applications out of an abundance of caution.” DHS will restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards”, a DHS spokesperson told the , Washington Examiner , earlier this month.
The Social Security numbers of deceased sponsors in the United States and fake phone numbers were used on applications, according to a report from FAIR, a nonprofit organization that calls for restricting immigration levels.
Address fraud was also found to be widespread. On 19, 000 applications, there were reportedly over 100 street addresses listed on buildings with a warehouse or storage unit.
In another example, 100 IP addresses used to access the internet, in other words, the connection from a particular phone, tablet, or computer, were used to apply in more than 51, 133 instances.
Republicans, including House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), had been warning about the program’s imposition since it first launched 19 months ago, saying it was a waste to mass-parole hundreds of thousands of people rather than admitting them on a discretionary basis.
In a statement, Green said,” This is exactly what happens when you implement an unlawful mass-parole program to spare your administration the political embarrassment and bad optics of overrun borders.” ” The Biden-Harris administration should terminate the CHNV program immediately”.
As of late June, more than 494, 000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have been admitted, roughly 30, 000 per month.
WASHINGTON EXAMINER CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MORE INFORMATION
The Biden administration’s CHNV program was established in January 2023 and fully implemented to allow immigrants from the four nations to request an interview while residing outside the United States.
The DHS vowed that the country’s immigrants who had a sponsor in the United States could pass “robust security vetting” and receive compensation for their commercial flight into the country.
