U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, blasted U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou for her agency approving illegal border crossers as sponsors for illegal border crossers.
At a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, Biggs also pointed out that the sponsors were found to be committing Social Security and other fraud under her watch.
Biggs addressed rampant fraud in a program created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for inadmissible citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, who don’t qualify for admission into the U.S.
Under Mayorkas, they were flown into the country through a CHNV parole program, used a CBP One phone app to apply for entry, and were released into the country. Part of the process requires having a “supporter” fill out an application on behalf of the CHNV parolee. While Mayorkas claimed app user parolees and supporters were thoroughly vetted, multiple Office of Inspector General reports disproved this claim, expressing security risks at airports.
In August, flights of CHNV illegal border crossers were temporarily suspended after a USCIS internal review found that tens of thousands of CHNV fraudulent applications were processed. Supporters used fake Social Security numbers and phone numbers and listed the same physical address on nearly 20,000 applications, according to the report, The Center Square reported.
Biggs asked Jaddou if she disputed the fact that supporters used the same Social Security Number on CHNV applications, which “happened at least 3,200 times. The same phone number used at least 3,300 times. The same supporter email address was used on applications nearly 2,000 times.”
Jaddou said she didn’t have the report in front of her and didn’t dispute it.
“You don’t really want to admit there’s this much rampant fraud,” he said.
Biggs next cited examples of fraud that weren’t fixed.
“The same exact 184-word response was used on more than 1,800 applications by nearly 194 CHNV supporters,” he said. “More than 460 nonexistent zip codes were used on supported applications on behalf of more than 2,800 CHV aliens. You can dance around and say you don’t have the report in front of you, but these are the facts. This program is rife with fraud.”
As of Aug. 6, DHS had approved more than 80,000 CHNV supporters for the program who were in the U.S. on a temporary basis.
USCIS approved 224 CHNV parolees who were already in the country illegally as sponsors for CHNV parolees that came after them, meaning illegal foreign nationals were sponsoring illegal foreign nationals.
USCIS also approved 28,322 illegal foreign nationals shielded from deportation through Temporary Protected Status as CHVN supporters; “19,865 SLEs approved as CHNV supporters, 311 DACA recipients approved as CHNV supporters, 1,300-plus aliens in the U.S. on temporary visas approved as CHNV supporters, 64 refugees approved as CHNV supporters, 19,112 conditional permanent residents approved this season as CHNV supporters,” he said.
“That is the program that you are administering. I’m not talking the aliens. I’m not getting into the violation of law of the U.S. code 1182, which states that the use of parole is supposed to be a case-by-case basis.”
Biggs said the supporter application process was so rampant with fraud that it was temporarily shut down but wasn’t fixed. The fraud is “still ongoing. We’re waiting for the next report to confirm that these things are still going on,” he said.
In addition to the USCIS report, a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security investigation found that “as of mid-October 2023, there were 1.6 million inadmissible aliens awaiting travel authorizations through the CHNV program” and DHS was using 50 airports worldwide to fly them in, The Center Square reported.
None flown into the country have a legal basis to enter the U.S. before being paroled through the CHNV program, DHS documents the committee obtained state.
“All individuals paroled into the United States are, by definition, inadmissible, including those paroled under the CHNV processes,” one of the DHS documents states.
The CHNV parole program was among more than a dozen that House Republicans identified as illegal and cited as reasons to impeach Mayorkas.
According to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, more than 852,000 illegal foreign nationals were processed and released into the country through the CBP One App and more than 531,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans deemed inadmissible were released into the country through the CHNV parole program, as of October.
Under the Biden administration, more than three million illegal border crossers were reported from CHNV countries, The Center Square reported. Many have been directly linked to violent crimes committed against Americans, The Center Square reported.
