Lamar Smith Can't Support VAWA Fraud Claim

"Lamar Smith—who seems to be the House of Representatives’ self-appointed immigration fraud watchdog—claims that “there are no safeguards in place to prevent fraud or to prevent an immigrant from fabricating tales,” but that simply is untrue.  The United States Citizenship & Immigration Services has extensive processes to verify the information that an application reports, plus an entire Fraud Detection Unit.  When we submit a VAWA self-petition on behalf of a battered woman, for example, it is usually several inches thick, including extensive evidence such as police reports, photographs of the effects of physical abuse, notarized testimony from witnesses to the abuse, and often reports from the domestic violence shelter where the woman has been living.  Even still, we often get requests for further evidence.  I’m sure that there are isolated instances of attempted fraud, but there are many safeguards in place to catch it." - Matthew Soerens, June 4, 2012.