Washington, D.C. (July 1, 2024) – A new Center for Immigration Studies analysis highlights that President Biden’s and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’s “parole in place” (PIP) scheme is designed to launder the immigration status of over half a million illegal aliens who, as of June 17, have lived continuously in the U.S. for at least 10 years and have married U.S. citizens. The PIP scheme represents a merger of marriage fraud and indifference to such fraud by Secretary Mayorkas’ DHS, which will result in a hefty bill for taxpayers. It will lead to immigration fraud on a massive scale, damaging the rule of law and inevitably leading to more chain migration, as illegal alien spouses will be able to petition for green cards for numerous other family members. 
 
George Fishman, a senior legal fellow at the Center and author of the report, said “Marriage fraud is particularly troubling as marriage offers one of the fastest paths to U.S. citizenship, granting foreign nationals nearly instant access to the benefits and privileges of full citizenship.”
 
The 9/11 Commission’s staff report addressed the link between marriage fraud and terrorism, noting that an interrogated al Qaeda associate stated “that some al Qaeda operatives married American women to obtain U.S. visas” and that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, believed marriage fraud to be “a fantastic mechanism for operatives to acquire valid documents.”
 
Marriage fraud for immigration purposes was already endemic before Mayorkas. As a consular officer once put it, “there is no stronger incentive to fall in love than when you get a deportation notice in the mail.” Consular officers have estimated that up to 30 percent of marriages between aliens and U.S. citizens are fraudulent.
 
DHS claims that it “has strong processes in place to identify and address potential fraud, which will be applied . . . to ensure the integrity” of the program. However, Fishman points out that the PIP scheme will be run by people answering to Secretary Mayorkas, who, as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the Obama administration, apparently considered anyone at the agency concerned about immigration fraud to have “black spots on their hearts,” and who oversaw an agency where faithful civil servants were allegedly retaliated against for resisting pressure to approve fraudulent petitions.
 
Fishman concludes that the fraud and impacts of the PIP scheme will occur regardless of the outcome of the November election. If Biden loses, he will probably expedite the expansion of the scheme to cover future marriages before the Trump administration takes over. If Biden wins, he will similarly work to expand the scheme during his second term.