More fraud in Diversity Visa Lottery as feds move to strip citizenship from four Soma
More fraud in Diversity Visa Lottery as feds move to strip citizenship from four Somalis
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, November 6, 2017
The Justice Department moved Monday to strip citizenship from four Somali immigrants who prosecutors say lied about being a family, and managed to defraud the Diversity Visa Lottery program that Republicans are aiming to nix.
The government says one woman, Fosia Abdi Adan, won the lottery in 2000 and then brought in two other people as her husband and children, using a fake marriage certificate.
The prosecutions come a week after the Diversity Lottery was in the news as the immigration program used by the suspect in last week’s terrorist truck attack in New York City.
“The current immigration system is easily abused by fraudsters and nefarious actors, and that’s certainly true of the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Mr. Sessions said the fraud alleged in the case of Ms. Adan meant three other people were also admitted to the U.S. as part of chain migration — an issue where President Trump has been eager to impose new restrictions.
The visa lottery doles out about 50,000 visas a year based on pure chance. Designed in 1990, the program was intended to give immigrants from countries that didn’t have a large U.S. population a means of entry.
Recently, however, Republicans — and some Democrats — had said the program had outlived its usefulness and had become a liability, particularly because of fraud.
The extent of fraud is not known, but analysts say the lottery is among the more vulnerable programs.
In the case of Ms. Adan, when she applied for the lottery she claimed to be married to a man named Jama Solob Kayre and to have three children, Mohamed Jama Solob, Mobarak Jama Solob and Mostapha Jama Solob.
In reality the man who claimed to be her husband was actually her cousin, Ahmed Mohamed Warsame, who was married to another woman.
The three children listed on the application were also fictitious identities, given to three other cousins.
In fact, Mr. Warsame’s actual wife was pregnant with another boy sired by him, even as he immigrated to the U.S. to be with Ms. Adan, State Department Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Sarah Cope said in an affidavit.
Of the three children, U.S. officials blocked one from coming to the U.S. but issued visas to two others, believing they were children of Ms. Adan. Both of them would later apply for and be granted citizenship, changing their names to Faysal Jama Mire and Mustaf Abdi Adan.
Ms. Adan, meanwhile, divorced her purported husband in 2002, and he went on to try to bring his real wife and children into the U.S.
State Department investigators flagged the applications for fraud.
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