WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday launched a new online tip form to help the public provide the agency with information about immigration fraud.
The new online form, available on the USCIS public website, prompts the form user for the information that the USCIS’ fraud investigators need to investigate allegations of immigration benefit fraud or abuse.
“Safeguarding the integrity of our immigration system is top priority for the Trump administration and is central to the agency’s mission,” said Joseph Edlow, the USCIS deputy director for policy.
“One way we protect our immigration system is by making it easy for the public to report immigration fraud and abuse.
“This new online tip form makes fraud reporting more efficient and robust, provides our agency with the information needed to investigate and address abuse of the system, and will help assist our federal partners in prosecuting immigration fraud.”
The new online tip form collects information related to the relevant fraud, identifies the type of benefit in question and provides space for the form user to describe the alleged fraud or abuse in additional detail. This online form streamlines fraud reporting by replacing three email boxes USCIS now uses for fraud and abuse reporting.
“The tip form will make the tip process more effective and efficient. Every day, well-intentioned people try to report immigration fraud or abuse to us, but our own internal procedures did not allow for a consistent and timely way to respond. Some of the allegations are true while others are not, but USCIS needed a better way to collect information and make an assessment.
“USCIS will work on tips previously submitted by email to completion. It is not necessary to resubmit a tip via the online tip form if you previously submitted it via email. People who submit tips by email after USCIS closes the email boxes will receive a bounce-back message letting them know that USCIS has decommissioned the mailbox and giving them a link to the tip form.”
The Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) mission is to safeguard the integrity of the nation’s lawful immigration system by leading agency efforts to combat fraud, detect national security and public safety threats, and maximize law enforcement and intelligence community partnerships., the Agency said.
