1. United States
  2. Mich.
  3. Letter

Stop the Immigration Fee Fraud and Refund Stolen Money

To: Rep. Tlaib, Sen. Slotkin, Sen. Peters

From: A verified voter in Livonia, MI

April 3

The State Department and DHS are committing what the Cato Institute calls the largest fraud in the history of the US immigration system. They've collected over $1 billion in fees from immigrants and their American families, then refused to process applications. No denials. No refunds. Just silence. You need to investigate this immediately and force these agencies to refund every stolen dollar. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and USCIS head Joseph Edlow have banned nationals from 92 countries from immigrating, yet their agencies keep collecting fees. A December proclamation blocks legal entry for people from 40 nations including Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and Haiti. State Department policy directed consular officers not to tell applicants during interviews that they're subject to bans because it "could be seen as pre-adjudication." Immigration attorneys are calling this an embassy scam to extract fees from people who will never get processed. Cuban immigrants alone paid $543 million for 935,000 unprocessed applications. Venezuelans paid $138 million. American citizens sponsoring spouses pay $2,675 in combined fees, only to have their families' applications sit in limbo indefinitely. This administration is pocketing thousands of dollars from hardworking Americans and their relatives, including spouses and minor children of US citizens, without even looking at their cases. That's fraud, and it needs to end now.

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