Employment Visas Can Pose a Security Threat

By Bill West

On March 26, the Florida Sun-Sentinel ran an AP report about U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), the immigration benefits agency under DHS, exceeding the Congressionally mandated ceiling on H1-B "temporary skilled worker" visas. These visas, along with a similar temporary worker visa called the L-1, or "Intra-Company Transferee" visa which allows foreign workers of a foreign company to come to the US to temporarily work in a US-based subsidiary or branch of that company, have long been controversial and subject to fraud abuse. Hostile foreign Intelligence services and terrorist organizations have also used these visas as a mechanism to gain "legitimate" entry into the US for their sinister operatives.

One of the most significant and ongoing issues with the H and L visa programs is that so many of the recipients of these visas convert their "temporary" status to permanent resident alien status, often based upon the same employment skills that afforded them the temporary visa in the first place. In the "H" visa category, there is a parallel permanent resident visa category for skilled workers that is frequently pursued by employer and employee once the alien "H" is in the United States. For the "L" visa holder, once in the US, they often shop for a US employer who is willing to file the permanent resident skilled worker petition for them, using the same business and professional skills and contacts that landed them the "L" status once they are securely operating within the US. Thus, these so-called temporary work visas are very often anything but that.

Which is one reason the H and L visas are so attractive to those hostile foreign Intelligence services and terrorist organizations. Not only do they get their operatives into the US with solid immigration cover, the process can be easily manipulated to gain permanent resident status and ultimately naturalized US citizenship for those same operatives. The fraudulent utilization of legitimate US-based business entities with connections to foreign Intel services or terror groups makes the petition process for these visas exceptionally easy (there were at least two suspected bogus "H" visa capers linked to the ongoing Palestinian Islamic Jihad prosecution case in Tampa). Combine this with the fact that virtually all such petitions are remotely adjudicated by CIS, which means an Examining Officer sitting in some regional adjudication center reviews stacks of paper petitions and supporting documents hour after hour every day, and the opportunity for getting a bogus petition approved is very good. Essentially, if all the spaces in all the forms are filled out with information that looks convincing and the supporting documentation is reasonably good and nothing kicks out on the basic lookout queries, the petition will most likely sail through and the alien will get the visa.

CIS Director Eduardo Aguirre has publicly stated that one of the top priorities for CIS is to reduce application backlogs. That was also a constant problem with the old INS benefit processing system...simply because there were far too few resources to deal with far too many applications and petitions in a legal environment that was increasingly complex and forever changing. Those pressures have really not changed under CIS, especially considering that CIS is virtually all made up of former INS benefits division officials. The ability to root out potential fraud and other malafide applicants by the CIS is probably only slightly better than it was under the old INS, and the threat of such abuse of the benefit system is even greater.

The fact that CIS exceeded the Congressional mandate of H1-B visas by 10,000 should be a concern to all of us. That is 10,000 more opportunities for even one more terrorist alien or foreign spy to gain entry into the US and remain here with legitimate "cover" than need have happened if CIS officials had administered this program more effectively. Congress will hopefully conduct further inquiry into this matter.

TrackBack