A group of Indian migrants have been charged with fraud in the controversial U Visa program.
Several of the migrants are part of the extended network of Patel families living in the United States, many illegally, who have been linked to a series of crimes.
The scheme concerns applications for a U non-immigration status (U Visa), which allows migrants who are victims of crimes to attain legal status in order to testify and/or help police find and prosecute criminals.
Prosecutors maintain that the migrants staged fake armed robberies and assaults so that they can claim to be helping police find the attackers. But there never were any actual assaults or robberies and they were all faked so the migrants can file for a U Visa.
Eleven migrants across three states were arrested this month and charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud, which carries a sentence of up to five years in a federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Investigators say that Rambhai Patel set up the fake robberies at various establishments in Massachusetts in which the clerk of a business would participate in a fake armed robbery. The clerks would hand the store’s money over to the sham robber, then wait a few minutes before calling the police to give the accomplice time to get away clean. The clerks then falsely told police they were victims of a violent crime and offered to become a witness to help solve the crime.
The police would then file for the U Visa status for the “victim,” giving the clerk protected, long-term, legal status in the U.S.
Those arrested include, Jitendrakumar Patel, Maheshkumar Patel, Sanjaykumar Patel, Dipikaben Patel, Rameshbhai Patel, Amitabahen Patel, Ronakkumar Patel, Sangitaben Patel, Minkesh Patel, Sonal Patel, and Mitul Patel. The suspects have been living in the U.S. illegally in various states including Ohio, Massachusetts, and Kentucky.
This fake robbery scheme to gain U Visas has also turned up elsewhere. In 2023, two Indian nationals were arrested in New York for a similar scheme.
In December of that year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Rambhai Patel and Balwinder Singh with conspiracy to commit visa fraud for carrying out fake armed robberies.
Rambhai Patel was ultimately sentenced to a 2-month prison sentence in August of last year.
The U Visa program has been rife with fraud and abuse.
The program, launched by Congress in 2000, was meant as an aid to law enforcement and was thought of as a unique way to solve crimes in the migrant community that would otherwise go unsolved, mostly due to a lack of cooperation among witnesses and victims in that community.
The program allowed illegals — both victims and witnesses — to work with police to solve crimes by coming forward with tips and information on serious crimes. After working with police, the program allowed illegals to gain legal standing based on their assistance to law enforcement. But instead of helping police solve crimes, the program has become a burden replete with massive fraud, frivolous applications, and misuse.
With its study, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that upwards of 416,000 petitions have been filed by migrants and most are simply granted the generous benefits in the program outright whether they actually helped police or not, despite that the program is supposed to only allow 10,000 applications annually.
Police agencies across the country have been flooded with hundreds of thousands of often fake applications filled with false information about non-existent crimes. In some cases, these mountains of false applications have forced police to spend a plethora of man hours to investigate the claims in the applications to separate the proper applications from the fraudulent ones.
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