Late last year officials made three arrests as part of the break up of a fraudulent immigration document ring. Undocumented immigrants were sold the documents and told they were authentic. One of those arrested was an INS inspector, accused of threatening immigrants who complained after realizing they had paid for fraudulent documents. The arrests followed a nearly year long investigation.

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A former INS inspector is on trial on charges of defrauding Chinese immigrants in New York City. Tin Yat Chan is accused of posing as an INS official and as an attorney, promising immigrants that he could use connections at the US Embassy in China to help relatives obtain permission to come to the US. Chan was convicted in 1993 of extorting Chinese asylum applicants, after which he lost his job with the INS.

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Seven immigrants were recently arrested on charges of using false information to obtain employment at Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut, and more arrests are expected. Sikorsky manufactures helicopters for the US military. None of those arrested are believed to have misused their security clearances, but officials say that any such identification fraud is a threat to national security.

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Investigators have discovered that a number of Border Patrol agents have been ripping off the federal government by submitting inaccurate requests for reimbursement. Officials say that vendors assisted in the fraud by providing incorrect receipts.

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John Allen Muhammad, one of the two men accused in last year’s sniper attacks near Washington, DC, made more than $60,000 forging and selling US identification documents during they year he spent in Antigua, according to a report from the Antiguan government. The report says that he sold at least 20 sets of driver’s licenses and birth certificates, and in many cases accompanied those who bought the documents to the US.

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Following a recent announcement by the INS that it was ordering Cheryl Little, the director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, to close her office in the Krome Detention Center, a number of Florida legislators have spoken out in Little’s behalf. The INS says it will further discuss the matter, but that it plans on opening a room at the facility that can be used by all legal representatives.

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A review by the Los Angeles Times of cases decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals shows that since regulations aimed at increasing the speed with which the Board disposes of cases were first suggested last February, the number of cases decided by a single Board member with only a summary decision has increased substantially. According to the survey, in the month before the new regulations were released, summary decisions were issued in only nine percent of cases, while in the month after the number had risen to 38 percent. By the time the rule went into effect in September, nearly half of the Board’s rulings were summary decisions. Some Board members are issuing more than 50 decisions a day, which leads advocates to question what kind of attention these cases are being given. At the same time, the number of cases in which the Board rules against the immigrant has also gone up by more than 20 percent.

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The US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela has closed both the immigrant and nonimmigrant visa units to all routine applications. After January 20, only applications from diplomats, spouses and minor children of US citizens, and emergency humanitarian and medical cases will be accepted. Appointments that have already been scheduled for dates after January 20 will not be held, and will be rescheduled for a later time.

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A Mexican national who was arrested attempting to reenter the US was found to have used fraudulent documents to obtain employment with a company that did work on White House grounds. Officials say that Salvador Martinez-Gonzalez worked as a supervisor for a company that provided tents and other items for special events.

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against a Tulsa, Oklahoma oil equipment manufacturer, claiming that it exploited foreign workers. According to the complaint, about 50 Indian workers at the John Pickle Co. were forced to work long hours for low pay, prevented from leaving the worksite and threatened with deportation if they complained. The company says that the immigrants were trainees, not employees, and that they had agreed to the terms and conditions of their positions before coming to the US. The company closed last September, in large part because of adverse publicity surrounding this case. The Labor Department has also filed a complaint against the company, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

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A San Jose couple is facing 33 felony counts based on allegations that they ran several immigration services offices where they defrauded undocumented immigrants out of thousands of dollars. Noel Ramayrat and Mercedes Alcantara were arrested and held with bail set at $2 million each. Officials say that Ramayrat presented himself as an immigration attorney and filed applications that had little chance of approval.

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Twenty people recently pled guilty to charges of marriage fraud in South Carolina, the third group to do so after the INS investigation Operation Broken Vows uncovered a massive marriage fraud scheme. At total of 221 people were charged, and 56 have already pled guilty. US citizen women were paid between $1,000 and $1,500 for their participation. None of the marriages were consummated, and the men seldom even lived in South Carolina. The maximum penalty for marriage fraud is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but officials do not expect any of the women will be sentenced to that long of a term. The men involved will all be deported.

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Rabih Haddad, the founder of an Islamic charity who was arrested in December 2001 after officials accused his charity, Global Relief Foundation, of providing money to terrorist groups, recently appealed his deportation order. Haddad applied for asylum, which was denied, and he was ordered deported for overstaying his visa. Haddad’s case was prominent in the battle over closed immigration proceedings in the wake of the September 11^th attacks, with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruling that the hearings had to be open to the public. The government had claimed that open hearings would provide information terrorists could use, but neither Haddad nor Global Relief has ever been charged with any terrorism-related offense.

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While news of the arrests of many Iranian citizens in Los Angeles dominated concerns over special registration, around the country similar arrests were occurring. In Denver, Colorado, six students at area universities were arrested for not taking full course loads, even though they had college permission to take a reduced number of classes.

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Catholic bishops in Florida this week called on President Bush to release more than 200 Haitian asylum seekers from INS custody. Calling their detention “indefensible,” the bishops also expressed concern about whether those detained have adequate access to legal assistance. Bishops seldom make official statements about public policy, making their condemnation of the government for failing to “articulate a compelling moral or security-based rationale” for the detention especially striking.

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More than a year ago, the INS launched the Absconder Initiative Program, aimed at locating and deporting immigrants who had been ordered deported but fled. Despite much publicity, the initiative has not located many of the approximately 300,000 fugitives. The INS is not releasing much information about its efforts, but it appears that fewer than 2,000 absconders have been located. An INS spokesperson says the agency never intended to search for anyone but those from countries with an Al-Qaeda presence, and that 1,100 of those people have been arrested. Rather than look for the absconders, the INS is entering their names into the National Crime Information Center database, which is used by 80,000 different law enforcement agencies. It is hoped that these agencies will call the INS if they come across someone listed in the database. The INS also points out that the vast majority of the absconders were ordered deported because of immigration violations, not crimes.