Inside ICE: Volume 2, Issue 5

11 Plead Guilty in Massive Asylum Fraud

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An 11th person pleaded guilty February 11 in federal court to a massive immigration benefits scam by organizations that, among other things, coached aliens on how to, among other things, solicit sympathy from asylum officers.

"We're seeing more and more of these types of cases every day," said Marcy Forman, Direrctor of ICE’s Office of Investigation. "When someone attempts to obtain benefits by deception, it degrades the entire immigration system because fraudulent documents present risks--the risk that criminals will use those documents in criminal schemes and the risk to our national security."

Springfield, Va., resident Johnson Aliffin, 33, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and immigration fraud and agreed to forfeit $10,000. Aliffin's plea was the result of "Operation Jakarta," a two-year, ICE-led investigation into the illegal practices of four Indonesian immigration brokers and consultants operating in Northern Virginia and Maryland.

The investigation revealed that the defendants aided thousands of Indonesian aliens living throughout the United States to apply by fraud for a wide variety of government benefits through alien labor certification, Virginia driver's licenses and identification cards, United States passports and Social Security cards.

The government's affidavit alleges that the principal frauds pursued by the defendants were asylum fraud, labor certification fraud and identification document fraud. With regard to asylum, the government's investigation revealed that several of the defendants were routinely preparing fraudulent asylum applications for Indonesian clients in return for a fee of $2,000 or more.

These applications typically contained false claims that the applicant had been raped, sexually assaulted, beaten or robbed by Muslims in Indonesia on account of the applicant's Chinese ethnicity or adherence to Christianity. Many of these claims were stock accounts repeated with little variation from application to application. The defendants often supported these claims with counterfeit Indonesian documents, such as birth certificates, baptismal certificates and police reports.

The investigation also revealed that the defendants coached their clients to exploit the perceived sympathies of the asylum officers and immigration judges assigned to consider the applications. For example, the defendants counseled married aliens to feature the wife as the lead applicant because the defendants believed asylum officers and immigration judges were more sympathetic to women and less likely to question them aggressively. Applicants were told to cry, plead and avoid positive references to Indonesia.

ICE Warns Against Net Scams

ICE Arrests Man in Child Sex Tourism Case

ICE Deports Salvadoran Man Who Raped, Impregnated 12-Year-Old

ICE Agents Target Criminals, Violent Gangs

ICE Agents Arrest Guatemalan for Human Rights Violations

11 Plead Guilty in Massive Asylum Fraud

Man Charged for Lying About Al Qaeda Plot

ICE Nabs Two Michigan Men for Human Trafficking Scam

ICE Removes Murder Suspect

ICE FPS Arrests Indiana Man Barred From Social Security

Chertoff Visits ICE

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Inside ICE is an e-newsletter produced by the ICE Office of Public Affairs to inform the public about the mission, operations and activities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Please send comments and contributions to Russ Bergeron, Editor.

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Russ Bergeron, Editor
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Russ.Bergeron@dhs.gov