Washington, D.C. (March 30, 2020) – A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies focuses on the controversial U visa program, which awards lawful status and a path to a green card and citizenship for alien crime victims and their families. The report analyzes data newly released by USCIS, which will help policymakers determine appropriate reforms to ensure the program works as Congress intended, serves law enforcement, and does not shut out deserving applicants. 

The annual number of U visa petitions has quintupled in the last decade, from roughly 11,000 in 2009 to 59,000 in 2018.  Once approved, victims may sponsor spouses and children, or parents (if the victim is under age 21).  The approval rate over 10 years is 82 percent.  Just over half (56%) were for the principal applicant (the crime victim), with 44 percent approved for family members. To qualify, victims must have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse; have information of use to prosecutors; and actually be helpful to authorities in prosecuting the abuser.  It is not supposed to be an automatic benefit for anyone who is the victim of a crime.

As the program has grown, there is more concern that the U visa program is vulnerable to fraud, improperly promoted by advocates, and exploited as an easy avenue to obtain legal status. Nearly all of the beneficiaries are illegal aliens, and nearly one-fifth of the approved petitioners did not have a valid passport or visa.  This raises questions as to the ability of USCIS to authenticate the identity of the individual (and their derivative family members). Because the program rules allow applicants to avoid deportation and obtain a work permit for several years, even before final approval of the application, there is a powerful incentive to file a petition, even if the applicant believes it eventually will be rejected.

Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy and author of the report, said, “This new data released by USCIS will be a big help to policymakers in identifying where to make changes in the U visa program.  I hope they will put out more reports like this, especially looking at whether the program is helping law enforcement agencies prosecute offenders and encourage victims of serious crimes to report and work with police.  Advocacy groups have agitated mainly for increasing the number of visas available and letting more categories of applicants qualify.  But it’s likely that Congressional intent can be fulfilled more directly by weeding out the frivolous and fraudulent petitions.  That would be a better way to help the meritorious applicants.”

View the entire report at: https://cis.org/Report/Visas-Victims-Look-U-Visa-Program

The new report from USCIS examines applications filed between 2012 and 2018.  Among the key findings: 

• Only five percent of U visa petitioners reported having lawful immigration status at the time of application.  Most (79%) reported never having lawful status and 14 percent said they were visa overstays.
• 22 percent of the petitioners reported that they had once been in deportation proceedings prior to seeking the U visa.  That number has nearly doubled in the last year.  Another 13 percent said that they were currently in deportation proceedings at the time they petitioned for the U visa.
• A significant share of U visa applicants are disqualified for admission to the United States, but are able to apply for a waiver of inadmissibility as a U visa applicant.  The most common reason for needing a waiver was illegal presence (79%), followed by lack of a valid passport or visa (19%). 
• A number of approved U visa recipients had previously committed immigration fraud (10%) or re-entered illegally after removal (8%), which are both considered serious immigration violations.  Six percent of those approved for the U visa had been ordered removed at some point before.
• The largest number of petitions were filed by citizens of Mexico (68%), followed by Guatemala (7%), El Salvador (6.3%), Honduras (5.3%), India (3%) and Ecuador (1.9%).  
• Fifty-eight percent of all the petitioners were women.  This share has gradually decreased since 2012, when 69 percent of the petitioners were female. 
• About 43 percent of the petitioners also seek to sponsor a family member/s.  On average, U visa petitioners sponsored 1.5 family members. 
• Roughly half (49.2%) of the family members sponsored were spouses, 42.5 percent were children, and 7.1 percent were parents. 
• Of the family members, about one-fifth had been or were currently in deportation proceedings.  90 percent were also in the United States at the time of application, and 86 percent lacked lawful status.