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

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

Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer,
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

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.

Sara A. Carter can be reached by e-mail at sara.carter@dailybulletin.com or by phone at (909) 483-8552.