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'Can They Do That?': Andy Biggs Asks Witness About Marriage Fraud Detection In Visa Applications
Forbes Breaking News
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7/1/2025
In a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) asked Codias Law Managing Attorney Cody Brown about marriage fraud.
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00:00
All right. You're back. Without objection, thank you. And now the gentleman from Arizona,
00:07
the great Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In May, not one illegal alien was released into
00:14
the United States. So, Mr. Nowrista, do you consider that to be a successful month?
00:22
Yeah. Good. Good. I'm always looking for accommodation and comedy. So we have some
00:27
comedy right there. I think we have more than that, sir. I don't know. We'll find out. The most
00:33
recent Congressional Border Security Caucus, we had the ICE director, acting ICE director,
00:39
Mr. Todd Lyons, come in. Mr. Lyons was describing visa overstays. So I'd ask the panel, are you all
00:47
familiar with the term visa overstays, Mr. Brown? You need to ask it out loud. Yeah. It's like a
00:53
court of law. You've got to answer it out loud. Very familiar. Okay. Mr. Nowrista? Yes. Mr. Hankinson?
00:57
Yes. And Ms. Vaughn? Yes. So let's talk about one visa overstay. I'm thinking of the Egyptian fellow
01:05
who went on a rampage, an anti-Semitic rampage, and attacked people in Boulder, Colorado.
01:15
Did you know that he was a visa overstay, Ms. Vaughn? Yes. And what type of visa did he have?
01:23
Before he overstayed? I don't think I have seen it confirmed. I believe it was a visitor visa,
01:30
B1, B2. That's what's been reported anyways, that it was a visitor visa. And how many,
01:36
Mr. Hankinson, how many visa overstays are there in the country right now? Roughly.
01:44
Microphone. Maybe a half a million a year
01:47
total overstays, but not all of those are permanent. The figures are a bit difficult to
01:54
parse. Okay. So when we look at visa overstays, I want to go back here now to Mrs. Vaughn for a sec.
02:04
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9-11 attack, said that marriage fraud is a, quote,
02:09
fantastic mechanism for terrorist operatives to acquire valid documents. Close quote. But rather than you,
02:14
we'll go to Mr. Brown. Do you agree with that? Absolutely. And can you, you've given in your
02:20
opening statement, you talked about how marriage fraud enterprises work. How would you describe
02:25
DHS's process for detecting marriage fraud, Mr. Brown? Do they do that? Can they do that?
02:31
Their process is virtually non-existent. When I refer to the deliberate dismantling of anti-fraud
02:37
safeguards, this is a great example. For example, under the last administration, one of the key
02:43
fraud safeguards that Congress enacted in the Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments Act of 1986
02:49
was interviews. They started waiving all the interviews. When our clients reported fraud,
02:55
you know what they got back? Silence. Nothing. And I want to make this point.
03:00
We have obtained internal data from USCIS. And from 2016 to 2019, a little subset, you know what
03:13
their fraud denial rate was for the marriage-based cases? Zero percent rounded to the nearest whole
03:19
number. This is, this is not accidental. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with our immigration system.
03:26
And there's a lot of innocent Americans who are suffering. Thank you for that. Mr. Hankinson,
03:32
what's the process like for vetting student visa applicants?
03:36
Well, it's as good as we can make it. The interviews take just a couple of minutes,
03:41
and most of the information that they provide can't be immediately verified. So we probably get it right
03:48
most of the time. So we have a nice, the acting nice director told us the other day that
03:52
in re-looking at some of these student visas, they had a student from China who was entering his 13th year
04:01
of a baccalaureate degree program for a bachelor's degree. That seems, I don't know. I've put kids
04:10
through college, and thank goodness none of them ever took 13 years to get through college.
04:13
And if they, if, Mrs. Vaughn, if a student commits a crime or otherwise becomes, does something that
04:25
would disqualify them for continuing on the student visa, how is that, how does that get reported to ICE or the
04:34
school? Well, if they are arrested for a state or local crime, ICE will get that information
04:43
through the Secure Communities program. But ICE is not necessarily going to prioritize it because
04:51
that, as a student visa holder, they are entitled to more due process than, for example, someone who's
04:59
in the country illegally and commits the same crime. So what, what the director told us is that
05:04
they're, it's not often that they're notified, and the school is rarely notified as well. Yeah,
05:11
the school wouldn't necessarily be notified. So as I, as my time expires, I pre, what I would point out to
05:16
the, my committee members that there's been some suggestions by Mr. Brown, Mr. Hankinson,
05:20
Mrs. Vaughn, on some ways to fix the visa system. I think it's worth reviewing. And then I've got
05:26
a couple of unanimous consents. This one's called what we know about the visa obtained by Egyptian man
05:32
who injured a dozen people in Colorado. Another one by Mr. Hankinson, actually. Commentary on the borders,
05:40
on border security. And then a letter that we sent to Secretary Mayorkas just a few months ago asking
05:47
for information about marriage fraud with regard to visa status. Thank you. Without objection.
05:55
Thank you, Mr. Biggs. And now Mr.
05:57
Rapp.
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