DHS Exposes Massive Fraud by Migrants in Minneapolis

A survey in Minneapolis showed that almost 50 percent of migrant households have cheated American citizens, says a top official in President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

“Officers encountered blatant marriage fraud, visa overstay, people claiming to work at businesses that can’t be found, forged documents, abuse of the H-1B [white-collar] visa system, abuse of the F-1 [student] visa, and many other discrepancies,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The division is stepping up efforts to combat fraud, and recently announced it is hiring Americans to check the claims made by migrants. In response, pro-migration groups claim the division should focus on providing benefits to migrants, not checking the truth of migrants’ self-serving claims.

Edlow continued:

Since September 19, officers from our fraud detection and national security directorate, working in teams, have conducted over 1,000 site visits across the Minneapolis-St. Paul, area as part of this operation. What they found should shock all of America, focusing on a list of over 1,000 target cases involving more than 900 individuals.

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In one case, officers identified an alien who had overstayed his visa, who was the son of a known or suspected terrorist on the no-fly list. He had previously been found to have engaged in marriage fraud, which resulted in the denial of several immigration benefit requests. He was arrested and is now presently being returned to his country of origin.

In another [case], an individual admitted to obtain a death certificate for just $100 to prove he was no longer married. In reality, his wife is alive, living here in Minneapolis, and is the mother of five of his children. And incidentally, he has another wife living in Sweden, with whom he has an additional three children.

In another case, an alien entered the United States without inspection in 2023 and was released by [President Joe Biden’s] border patrol. The alien married a U.S. citizen while in removal [deportation] proceedings and was interviewed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul USCIS field office just last week, where both he and his American spouse stated under oath that their marriage was legitimate. The USCIS officers conducting the interview were suspicious. The site visits [to hte claimed home] were authorized the same day. The American spouse, ultimately, that afternoon, admitted the marriage was fraudulent and entered into solely for immigration purposes, and withdrew her petition for that alien.

This type of same-day action …from interview to site visit, has really never happened before, and I am incredibly impressed and thankful to the diligent work of the agents who made that happen for the first time, but not for the last time.

And finally, I wanted to note in one case, an alien engaged in marriage fraud by taking advantage of an elderly U.S. citizen spouse, including threats and severe neglect. The American spouse was able to divorce the alien with the help of her family and caregivers, but the family still lives in fear of retaliation from the alien over the failed marriage fraud scam.

These are not victimless crimes. Every case of fraud we uncover damages our national security, undermines the integrity of our immigration system, and, as I just gave you an example, has real consequences.

The Minneapolis survey is a big change from the last few years, when President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputies deliberately ignored obvious evidence of massive fraud, regardless of the cost to Americans.

Many migrants come from cultures where people feel little obligation not to steal from each other or their government. Nations such as Somalia, with low-trust cultures, tend to have high crime rates amid poverty and civic chaos.