Homeland Security’s citizenship agency has put out a call for volunteers who can help process applications for a fraud-plagued program that allows unauthorized migrants from some Latin American nations to skip the border and fly directly into the U.S.
The program has welcomed more than half a million migrants who lack a legal visa to enter the U.S. It was abruptly paused several weeks ago after an internal review found massive fraud, but the call for volunteers suggests U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is looking for a quick restart.
In the email call for volunteers Donna Campagnolo, USCIS’s chief human capital officer, said they want volunteers to come forward by the end of this month.
“This will be a full-time, remote detail for 180 days. No prior experience is necessary,” Ms. Campagnolo wrote. “Training will be provided, and overtime may be available.”
The email didn’t say when the program would be revived, and USCIS declined to comment on the email, saying it “speaks for itself.”
Emilio Gonzalez, who ran USCIS under President George W. Bush and who obtained the email, said it was a worrying move for a program that had to be put on pause because of fraud.
He said the people being recruited to review the applications are low-level staffers who lack the kind of expertise to sniff out fraud. Indeed, the email seems to specifically forbid full-fledged immigration officers from participating.
“This administration is intent on driving this program through regardless of the consequences. That’s what’s bothersome from a national security perspective,” Mr. Gonzalez told The Washington Times. “You’re going to tell me in what, four weeks, you figured out the massive fraud and are ready to start over again?”
The program, colloquially known as CHNV, allows citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the U.S. on “parole” — a quasi-legal status — despite having no visa. They are supposed to get financial sponsors in the U.S. who promise to be responsible for them before they then arrive directly at American airports, skipping over the border.
Biden officials say it is reducing pressure on the border by allowing as many as 30,000 people a month to enter without trying to sneak over the border. Republicans in Congress say the program is on legally iffy footing and still means illegal immigrants are entering, en masse, putting pressure on local communities that end up housing and schooling and providing emergency medical care.
USCIS is responsible for reviewing the financial support applications. Customs and Border Protection is responsible for approving entry at the airports.
Homeland Security earlier this month confirmed it had put the program on ice after an internal review found striking indications of fraud in those applying to be financial sponsors.
Investigators found the same 100 IP addresses were used on more than 51,000 financial support applications. A single address in Tijuana, Mexico, was used 1,328 times.
And looking at individual sponsor names, some 3,200 people filed more than 100,000 applications, which works out to each of them purporting to sponsor more than 30 migrants apiece.
USCIS has not detailed what steps it’s taking to fix the fraud.
Joseph Edlow, who served as the agency’s acting director in the Trump administration, said recruiting volunteers who don’t have training as immigration officers is a sign that USCIS isn’t making the right fixes.
“This eliminates their chances of catching fraud,” Mr. Edlow said. “To have staffers who have no connection to the immigration work of the agency reviewing forms in the hopes they’re either going to catch fraud or make a determination or a review, in this case, that someone is or is not eligible is laughable.”
Homeland Security, while declining to talk about the call for volunteers, defended its ability to sniff out fraud.
“DHS has review mechanisms in place to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in our immigration processes. DHS takes any abuse of its processes very seriously,” the department said in a statement.
It promised the program will be restarted “as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards.”
The financial sponsorship form can be filled out online.
It asks would-be sponsors questions about their current sources of income and assets. The form prods sponsors to describe the resources they plan to use to help house and settle the migrants they are vouching for.
The Washington Times reported earlier this year that smugglers were selling financial support affidavits for $5,000.
Mr. Gonzalez said he came across a case this summer involving someone who paid $6,000 to a broker in Nicaragua to connect with a financial sponsor. The applicant had no ties whatsoever to the sponsor.
The administration says paying for sponsorships was “not encouraged,” but did not say it was actually against the rules.
In some high-profile cases, immigrants who had arrived via the CHNV program were found to be living in government-run shelters, which experts said would seem to violate the point of having a sponsor.
One of those is a Haitian man who has been charged with raping a disabled 15-year-old girl at the shelter in Rockland, Massachusetts.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.