Gang members and scammers using dead people’s names were applying to be sponsors for President Biden’s fraud-riddled immigration “parole” program that has welcomed hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, The Washington Times has learned.
The program was also starved of staffing, leaving it unable to track down all the fraud, according to the government’s internal audit, which said the program was “well-intentioned” but became a means for fraudsters to “victimize” the migrants and steal Americans’ identities.
In one case, someone filed an application using the passport number of former first lady Michelle Obama.
The program allows migrants from Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the U.S. without a legal visa. It requires them to have a U.S.-based sponsor to promise financial support.
The process for approving sponsors was riddled with loopholes and snafus that made fraud easy to perpetrate and tough to spot, according to a 23- page internal audit by Michael Mayhew, head of the Immigration Records and Identity Services division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“Since there is little to no barrier to entry to file … there is a lot of fraud, exploitation, and duplicative filings that have occurred,” Mr. Mayhew said in the audit.