"Former INS employee, 6 others indicted in marriage fraud scheme"


Hi Gang:
Of late there has been scant attention paid to the immigration crisis that confronts the United States.  New programs that are willing to have a discussion about immigration refuse to accept the fundamental and inescapable truth that immigration is an issue that has a huge deleterious impact on nearly every challenge and threat our nation faces.
What is also almost never acknowledged is that there is far more to the immigration issue that the failures of the federal government to truly secure the southern border of the United States that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico.  Most politicians and journalists are quick to talk about the “four border states” (California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas) but ignore that any state that has an international airport or a seaport is as much a border state as are those states found along the northern and southern borders of the United States.
Many of those who claim that they want effective immigration law enforcement will talk about the need to make E-Verify mandatory but are oblivious to the way that aliens are granted lawful status and employment authorization.  Aliens who can successfully game the immigration system to acquire employment authorization or become lawful immigrants or naturalized U.S. citizens are registered within the E-Verify system as being entitled to work in the United States.
Immigration benefits must be thought of as the keys to the kingdom.  When aliens are granted lawful status by gaming the system or by dealing with a corrupt employee of USCIS the system itself becomes corrupted.
Today my commentary was predicated on the disturbing ICE  news release that a former employee of the old INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service, himself a naturalized United States citizen conspired with others to provide green cards to aliens who entered into fraud marriages to acquire lawful immigrant status.  While a number of movies, most of the comedies, have been made about this sort of scheme, marriage fraud is not a comedy nor is it a “victimless crime.”  
A number of terrorists and transnational criminals have engaged in such conspiracies in order to acquire lawful immigration status in the United States.

Schumer’s platform of propaganda built on false promises to address security and fairness is the basis for my most recently posted article that appears on the CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization Website) which

can be found at www.capsweb.org.  A copy of that article is attached to the bottom of this e-mail.


The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel contained numerous examples of instances where terrorists who engaged in terrorist attacks made use of visa fraud and immigration benefit fraud to not only enter the United States but embed themselves in the United States.

To cite an example, page 47 of the above-noted report contained the following paragraph:

Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida. Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected.   Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.

On July 27, 2006 I testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic:

WHETHER THE ATTEMPTED IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REID-KENNEDY IMMIGRATION BILL WILL RESULT IN AN ADMINISTRATIVE AND NATIONAL SECURITY NIGHTMARE

video of a portion of my testimony before that hearing provides crystal clarity about my grave concerns about the nexus between any such amnesty program and national security.

I testified on the nexus between immigration and terrorism when I was called to testify before a hearing that was conducted before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on International Relations on May 11, 2006 on the topic

VISA OVERSTAYS:  CAN WE BAR THE TERRORIST DOOR?

On June 22, 2007 the Washington Times published my commentary entitled:
In this documentary I noted that the fatally flawed legislation known as “Comprehension Immigration Reform” should be given a more truthful and descriptive title- I suggested it be renamed the “Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act” because it would have required the inept and incompetent division USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to provide official identity documents to millions of illegal aliens who, in the parlance of the immigration anarchists are “undocumented.”  This would provide ample opportunities for terrorists to obtain brand new “clean” identities that they could then use to circumvent various “no fly” and terror watch lists and embed themselves in the United States, traveling freely and legally working in jobs that might have critical infrastructure implications or national security implications!
On Novermber 29, 2006 the Washington Post ran an article about that fiasco entitled:

Here are the first two paragraphs from this disturbing news report:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has lost track of 111,000 files in 14 of the agency’s busiest district offices and processed as many as 30,000 citizenship applications last year without the necessary files, congressional investigators reported yesterday.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’s audit arm, conducted the review at the request of Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) after U.S. authorities granted citizenship in 2002 to a man without checking his primary file. The file, which was lost, indicated ties to the militant Islamic group Hezbollah.

“It only takes one missing file of somebody with links to a terrorist organization to become an American citizen,” said Grassley, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “We can’t afford to be handing out citizenship with blinders on.” 

This made a complete and utter mockery of the entire immigration benefits program with serious national security ramifications yet no one was fired or, to my knowledge, even disciplined!  This was just seen as another one of those screw-ups that are all but inevitable!
USCIS processes between six million and seven million applications each and every year and there are fewer than 700 investigators assigned to USCIS to attempt to maintain integrity to the agency that is, for all intents and purposes, the locksmith of the United States.  (Lawful immigrant status and especially United States citizenship are often referred to as the “Keys to the kingdom.”)
You should know that I have come to refer to DHS as being the Department of Homeland Surrender!
On February 24, 2012, CAPS posted my commentary that was entitled:
Here is an excerpt from my commentary:
 The 9/11 Commission Report and the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel did an in-depth analysis of how the terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 were able to enter the United States and embed themselves in our country as they prepared to launch the worst terrorist attack ever carried out on our soil.

The first paragraph from the preface of that report states that:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.

And a paragraph under the title “Immigration Benefits” found on page 98 says that:

Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding,  go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.

Immigration is not a single issue but a singular issue that impacts nearly every challenge and threat confronting the United States today!

If our government’s failures to protect American jobs by securing our nation’s borders and effectively enforcing our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! 

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

If you like this commentary, kindly forward it to as many folks as you can and ask them to do the same- I am attempting to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

-michael cutler- 



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Former INS employee, 6 others indicted in marriage fraud scheme

Immigration discussions usually focus on lax border security or on the need to punish employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. Rarely discussed is the flawed process by which aliens are granted a variety of immigration benefits which range from obtaining permission to lawfully work, to acquiring lawful immigrant status and, ultimately, to becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Numerous Government Accountability Office and Office of Inspector General reports have explained how immigration benefits programs and the visa issuance process are hobbled by ineptitude, a lack of resources and are also riddled with fraud.

On December 10, 2012 ICE posted a news release about Andrew Chojecki and six of his alleged co-conspirators for marriage fraud. Chojecki, a naturalized citizen, is a former INS adjudications officer. The ICE investigation ended Chojecki’s alleged criminal activities. However, the report is incomplete.

Since Chojecki is a United States citizen, ICE investigators should review his immigration file to determine if he acquired citizenship fraudulently.

When the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002, INS was dismantled. Therefore Chojecki has likely not worked as an adjudications officer for long; the news release didn’t say how long he was employed or under what circumstances he stopped working at the agency. Chojecki may have adjudicated thousands of applications during the course of his career. If he accepted bribes or if any other type of fraud was involved during his adjudications (many of which are well documented all over the Internet), ICE made no mention of it or named the aliens who may have benefited.

While the report identified six alleged co-conspirators, there was no reference to efforts to identify, locate, arrest, prosecute and/or deport aliens who entered into sham marriages.

Marriage fraud is not a “victimless crime.”  The 9/11 Commission identified immigration benefit fraud as being an essential embedding tactic used by terrorists to hide in plain sight.

The commission prepared a Monograph on Terrorist Travel about immigration fraud. Here are two excerpts:

From the first paragraph of the reports preface:

“It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal….”

Page 98 contains the following under the title “Immigration Benefits:”

“Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.”

Immigration fraud imperils national security and must be effectively addressed.

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