Thread: USCIS officer charged with fraud, one of thousands of cases

Thanks again to JJ for this one!


USCIS officer charged with fraud, one of thousands of cases nationwide: Immigration officer under fire


Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin Article Launched: 9/19/2006

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4359160


A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration officer is out on bail after being arrested on charges she issued a visa to illegal immigrants and forged a visa admission stamp for use on other official documents.


Maria Barillas, an immigration information officer in Los Angeles, was taken into custody Wednesday on state fraud and forgery charges by officers with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General's Office and agents with USCIS Office of Security and Investigations.



Barillas is accused of forging and counterfeiting a U.S. Government immigration visa admission stamp; issuing a false visa to an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua; stealing and defacing federal documents; accessing government computers without authorization; and identity theft, according to officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.



According to Barillas' arrest warrant, the charges stemmed from acts she reportedly committed from July 25, 2003, to July 20, 2004, though Barillas remained in USCIS' employ until her Sept. 13 arrest, USCIS spokesman Chris Bentley said.



Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman with the Los Angeles County DA's Office said Barillas was released on $25,000 bail and that her arraignment is set for Oct. 4.



Bentley said USCIS officials take charges against employees seriously and work closely with law enforcement to ensure the integrity of Citizenship and Immigration Services.



"Obviously, this is significant," Bentley said. "It points to the fact that the integrity of the immigration process is extremely important to us whenever an allegation of misconduct comes to our attention. ... We will do everything we can to ensure that we maintain the public's trust."



Immigration Information Officers collect applications and fees at USCIS offices, Bentley said, and are the first employees responsible for screening applications for immigration benefits. USCIS employs more than 1,000 Immigration Information Officers across the country. Part of their job is to discover and prevent immigration fraud.



According to federal prosecutors, immigration benefit fraud may involve other criminal activity including income tax evasion, money laundering, production of fraudulent documents and conspiracy, noted the GAO report.



Since January, five USCIS employees have been arrested, arraigned or convicted on charges ranging from benefits fraud to embezzlement.



According to recent congressional testimony, USCIS Office of Security and Investigations has more than 3,000 internal complaints about employees on record, which do not include allegations being investigated separately by the Office of Inspector General. Of those, more than 500 involve bribery, fraud and foreign influence.



Michael Maxwell, former director of USCIS' Office of Security and Investigations, testified in April before Congress that the organization is overwhelmed with allegations of misconduct.



"Preliminary information regarding Wednesday's arrest must remind CIS administration that the four criminal investigators currently staffing the Office of Security and Investigations cannot adequately investigate or manage a caseload of 3,000 additional allegations of employee misconduct," Maxwell said. "It's far too easy for an immigration officer to grant the immigration benefit of their choosing, to the person of their choosing, at the time of their choosing. That person may be a criminal, a terrorist or a spy."



This week, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation, condemned USCIS for allocating millions of dollars this year for employee bonuses and parties to celebrate what officials claim is a victory in backlog reduction. Royce said the money should have been used for more criminal investigators.



The backlog of complaints coming to the Office of Security and Investigations grew at a pace of 50 per week between April 1, 2005, and April 20, 2006, Maxwell said.



"I suspect that pace continues to this day," he added.



On June 7, Phillip A. Browne, a USCIS adjudicator in New York City, was arrested with his sister and 28 others on charges of arranging sham marriages, producing fake documents, selling $1 million worth of green cards, and laundering the proceeds during a period of more than four years. The FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General conducted that investigation.



On June 29, the FBI arrested Robert T. Schofield, supervisory district adjudications officer in the Fairfax, Va., office, after conducting a joint investigation with the Office of Inspector General. Schofield was arrested for falsifying naturalization certificates for Asian immigrants. Allegations against Schofield for misconduct, including accepting bribes, unauthorized use of government credit cards, and falsifying immigration documents date back at least 10 years, according to the Inspector General's office.

Hey, I have an idea! Why don't we avoid having officers of Mexican descent man the Mexican border? I wonder how many "Mexican-American" officers we have on the Canadian border? I'll bet not many. Let's send the officers manning the Canadian border down to the Mexican border and vice versa. I'll bet that would cut down on the misconduct.

It is scary to think that these people are doing illegals these favors. I guess there is truth to the phrase everyone has a price. Organized crime groups know well and often have people in immigration which do them favors or pass out information on people (the info part comes from an immigration lawyer who knows some of them). I just hope these people who have been caught serve real serious time.

CrocketsGhost wrote:

Hey, I have an idea! Why don't we avoid having officers of Mexican descent man the Mexican border? I wonder how many "Mexican-American" officers we have on the Canadian border? I'll bet not many. Let's send the officers manning the Canadian border down to the Mexican border and vice versa. I'll bet that would cut down on the misconduct.

I suggested something very similar in the past. Unfortunately, many of the border patrol agents on our Southern border have relatives and friends living in Mexico. Heck, some of them were even born there. I'm not saying they are all crooks and illegal immigrant supporters, but by virtue of their close ties to Mexico, some of them will eventually fall to temptation. I agree with you, let's start relocating officers will close ties to Mexico to our Northern border and bring in replacements through new hires from further inside the interior of the United States or as you suggested - from North to South and vice versa.

Unfortunately they need Spanish speakers at the Mexican border and that is most likely why they are there. My suggestion is use Spanish speakers who learned the language in school or Hispanics of non-Mexican background such as Cubans.