RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hi Gang:

I am providing you with a press release that was issued by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on April 6, 2011.

As you will see, the press release reports on an immigration consulting business that had been operating in the Los Angeles area and conspired with aliens and United States citizens in conjunction with a fraud scheme that provided the aliens with means of securing lawful immigrant status via marriage fraud and also provided aliens with work visa petitions.  Reportedly the fees ran as high as $60,000 for a Green Card based on the marriage fraud and $15,000 for a work visa.

The press release noted that at least 21 instances of fraud applications for visas had been uncovered and that the ring operated in California, New Jersey, Georgia and India.

Additionally, the trio of defendants are alleged to have arranged for United States citizens to become involved in the fairly sophisticated fraud scam in which they married aliens seeking Green Cards for $2,000.00.  I refer to this as a fairly sophisticated scheme because joint bank accounts were arranged for as well as other efforts were made to make these bogus marriages appear to be legitimate.

While the press release did not mention the immigration status of the three defendants, all who were apparently members of the same family: Ajit Kumar Bhargava, 61; his wife, Nisha Bhargava, 56; and their daughter, Runjhun Bhargava, 30, I would hope that the investigation will delve into the way that they had entered the United States and set up their consulting service.

Something else not noted in the press release is what efforts, if any, are being made to locate those who conspired with them.  The aliens and the citizens who allegedly engaged in defrauding the United States by entering into sham marriages or filed bogus applications for work visas are also guilty of committing felonies- if, of course, they are guilty of what they should be accused of doing.

The point is that if ICE only focuses on the three defendants who ran the consulting service known as “MPEagle Consultants” which was based in Cerritos, California then a number of alleged co-conspirators are being ignored.  The implications would be serious.  The point to law enforcement is to punish those who violate the law.  This can serve as a strong deterrent to convince those who might contemplate violating the law that there is a real potential of getting caught and punished if you commit a similar crime.

If those aliens who paid the company in order to secure immigration benefits to which they were not entitled are not arrested then the message to other aliens who might consider engaging in similar fraud schemes that there is no risk to committing those crimes.  Similarly, the citizens who were purportedly paid to participate in the fraud marriages must be sought and prosecuted to not only punish them for their alleged violations of law, but to serve a clear message to others who might be tempted to engage in similar crimes.

The IRS often arrests taxpayers who either file bogus tax returns or fail to file tax returns at all in order to deter those who might attempt similar crimes.  Often such arrests are carried out as April 15th approaches to serve notice on the public that the IRS is ready, willing and able to identify tax cheats to deter crimes involving tax evasion and similar violations of law.

It is also important to give a bit of thought as to who the “clients” of MPEagle Consultants might be considering how high the fees for “services”  allegedly were.  My concern is what might motivate someone to pay the high fees the press release stated were paid by the alien clients.  It must be presumed that the aliens believed that they could ultimately make enough money to make it worthwhile to pay those extremely high fees.  My concern is how did they plan to make their “investments” pay off?  Were the aliens who entered into these expensive conspiracies planning to commit crimes or participate in terrorist activities that caused them to be willing to pay such high “fees?”

Does anyone really know how many aliens actually benefited by conspiring with the alleged criminal organization?  Please note, the press release indicated that while MPEagle Consultants were headquartered in California, they apparently had offices in Georgia, New Jersey and India.  This would seem to indicate that it was a far flung operation and, if it had offices in India and if, as it is alleged, they engaged in corrupt practices, is anyone considering that employees at American consulates or the American Embassy might have worked in conjunction with them?  One of the areas of vulnerability that our nation faces is that often so-called “locals” are employed by the State Department in order to have them assist them in securing visas and other benefits through fraud.  (A local is a citizen of the foreign country in which the consulate or embassy is located.)  One of the issues with local employees is that when it is discovered that such an employee is engaged in corrupt practices it is often easier to simply fire the employee rather than prosecute that employee.  This is a real problem because such an individual is often able to “earn” quite a bit of tax-free income in a very short period of time knowing that the likelihood of criminal prosecution is small.

There have been a number of similar cases involving fraud rings that provided fraudulent documents to illegal aliens or helped them to gain lawful status by fraud schemes where the press releases made absolutely no mention of any efforts made to identify, locate, arrest and prosecute the aliens who availed themselves of the “services” provided by the criminal rings.  The same apparent lack of effort to locate illegal aliens who were smuggled into the United States by smugglers is evident in other ICE press releases.

Here are links to several other such press releases and the title of the press release:

In reviewing these press releases, you will notice that in some of these instances thousands of aliens involved and yet the defendants generally were only sentenced to serve a couple of years in jail even though they were found guilty of smuggling and/or aiding and abetting large numbers of aliens to circumvent our nation’s borders and immigration laws.

Finally, it is extremely important to understand that there are so many smuggling and fraud rings that are operating “out there.”  The government officials who are quoted in these press releases issue macho statements that include the key “buzz words” that include mention of how the defendants compromised national security, endangered lives and will punished to the maximum extent of the law.  Yet the tough rhetoric is not substantiated by the reality of these cases.

When we were kids we all heard the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me!”

Those who conspire with smugglers and fraud rings and those who run those criminal rings could probably say the same thing about those soundbites issued by prosecutors and the leaders of our federal agencies.  Deterrence can only be achieved by action and results.  The necessary actions require an adequate number of special agents to actually go after those who conspire with the criminal organizations to either receive an immigration benefit or money for their involvement in fraud schemes.

This is why I do not believe that the so-called, “Silent Raids” being conducted by ICE in order to punish those who intentionally hire illegal aliens but all but ignore the illegal aliens who are employed by those employers.

As you may know, I was a witness at a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement on January 26th on the issue of worksite enforcement.  The issue of the “Silent Raids” was raised at that hearing which was entitled: