American citizenship is supposed to be a precious gift that people are willing to die for, but our immigration system has turned it into a reward for fraud. And of the innumerable examples of immigration scams, two are particularly bad—the EB-5 visa for supposed investors and the “crime visas” that that allow anyone in the world who claims to be a victim of a crime to claim citizenship.

• The EB-5 visa.

Originally, the EB-5 visa was designed to create long-term jobs in the United States by allowing people into the country who could start a new business. However, the law currently provides a two-year visa to anyone who deposits half a million dollars in an already existing business.

The result: a bureaucratic shortcut that allows international criminals and corrupt officials fleeing their own country to gain residency and then pursue American citizenship.

Even the Main Stream Media recognizes there’s a problem:

Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website.

[Whistleblowers: US Gave Visas to Suspected Forgers, Fraudsters, Criminals, by Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk, ABC News, February 3, 2015]

And foreign enemies of the United States are also taking advantage of the program.

Federal agents in Los Angeles are investigating an L.A. shipping firm and its Iranian-born owner who for years have participated in and promoted an obscure U.S. immigration program — allowing the company to recruit wealthy foreign investors to receive visas and potentially Green Cards, law enforcement sources told ABC News…

Whistleblowers inside the federal agency that oversees the immigration program told ABC News they have been deeply frustrated by an inability to de-certify the company, even after they became aware of the investigation and saw the company’s name surface in an alarming internal Department Homeland Security memo. The memo, shared with ABC News, outlines concerns that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] have attempted to exploit the visa program “to infiltrate the United States.”

[Feds Investigating Iran Ties to Firm Involved in US Visa Program, by Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk, ABC news, February 3, 2015]

Of course, the Revolutionary Guards could have saved themselves the trouble by simply claiming to be victims of crime. That would qualify them for

• the U Visa

which grants a green card to any victim of a crime anywhere in the world; or

• the T Visa

designed to help victims of human trafficking.

Needless to say, the possibilities for fraud with these “crime victim visas” are immense. Take the story that inspired the 2012 film Eden: is that

Eden is a 2012 film about a suburban teenage girl kidnapped from her hometown in New Mexico and taken into a warehouse outside Las Vegas, where she is forced into a factory of sex slaves headed by a crooked US Marshal…Assigned the name Eden, the girl we follow is imprisoned, beaten, raped, whipped, and tortured.

As the movie makes clear, Eden's story is based on the life of a real woman. She is Chong Kim, a noted crusader against sex trafficking.

But nothing was true about the immigrant dominated sex trafficking business:

On June 4, 2014, four years after their correspondence started, Barnes surprised the world by publishing an announcement on Breaking Out's Facebook page.

"To all our loyal followers," it began, "we regretfully want to inform everyone the results of a year long investigation by our highly experienced investigative unit, that Chong Kim whom [sic] has claimed to be a survivor of human trafficking is not what she claims to be. After thorough investigation into her story, people, records, and places, as well as, many interviews with producers, publishers and people from organizations, we found no truth to her story.

[Eden Was a Scary Movie About Sex-Trafficking Based on a True Story-Or Was It? By Jen Graves, The Stranger, December 17, 2014]

And even when the “crime victim visa” program is used according to the law, it grants American citizenship for the victims of relatively minor crimes and can actually reinforce negative behavior.

For example, Mexico is not exactly noted for its enlightened attitude regarding women. Yet every Mexican woman who is the victim of spousal abuse is now eligible for the program. Abuse is a despicable crime, but importing huge numbers of people from cultures where it is more widely accepted will hardly solve the problem.

The crime doesn’t even have to be a felony. In the case of one Sharon Gonzalez, her abuser pled guilty to a class B misdemeanor. Yet that was enough to secure her a U Visa—the Third World equivalent of winning the lottery [Those in country get protection with U Visas, but fear and inconsistency remain, by McKenzie Romero, Deseret News, January 1, 2015]

Even in the MSM’s sob stories, we find out that it’s not the federal government that determines whether the crime was important enough to grant a U Visa but local law enforcement. And according to Romero’s Deseret News article, local law enforcement takes a rather lackadaisical approach to this most important question of national integrity:

The Unified Police Department and Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office receive an estimated 150 U visa applications each year, leading the agencies on the Wasatch Front…Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal says the department recalls denying only one request in almost three years...

This isn’t surprising when you consider that many big city law enforcement bodies have actually been going out of their way to welcome more illegal immigration. In Salt Lake City specifically, Police Chief Chris Burbank (email him) actually goes out of his way to enable immigration fraud.

Burbank has long been an apologist and facilitator for illegal aliens. He was filmed laughing about the sale of fraudulent Social Security numbers in spite of the fact that an estimated 80,000 Utah children are victims of illegal alien-driven Social Security number identity theft. He has turned Salt Lake City into a sanctuary city for illegal aliens and he has failed to control a flourishing cartel-driven drug trade.

[Police Chiefs and Sheriffs Raise Surrender Flag on Illegal Immigration, by Ronald Mortensen, Center for Immigration Studies, February 2, 2015]

Naturally, there are some patriotic law enforcement officials, but they are under attack from the usual suspects like the ACLU and the MSM.

Some law enforcement agencies make it difficult for immigrants to win such certifications.

According to data obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, officials in Kern County, for example, approved only four out of 160 requests for certification in the last three years. Other jurisdictions signed thousands of certifications during the same period.

Kern County officials have said they refused to sign certifications for crimes committed long ago because they felt victims were trying to game the immigration system. [Emphasis added]

[Safety for immigrant victims put on hold by U-visa delay, by Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2015]

The end result: an immigration system that almost seems designed to render American citizenship meaningless. Instead of guarding our borders, our immigration law actually undermines it. And in case local officials try to take their responsibilities seriously, the attack dogs of activist lawyers and a treasonous MSM are running to destroy them.

America does have a “broken immigration system.” But it’s not broken in the way the MSM claims. It’s broken because we have too many loopholes, too many opportunities for corruption, and too many ways to game the system.

Most of all, it’s broken because it appeals to the worst instincts of the world, rather than the best interests of Americans.

The blogger Federale (Email him) is a 4th generation Californian and a veteran of federal law enforcement, including service in the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Federale's opinions do not represent those of the Department of Homeland Security or the federal government, and are an exercise of rights protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.