Report questions safety of marriage visa program

In the wake of an alarming report released this week by the Office of the Inspector General, lawmakers are calling for changes to the way that marriage visas function in the United States.

The report was released after investigators found that known human traffickers utilized work and fiancée visas to bring victims into the U.S.

The report also revealed that although law enforcement managed to find and identify many cases of human trafficking, the sparse communication between government and law enforcement agencies limited their effectiveness in identifying cases of fraud.

“This alarming report identified vulnerabilities in the fiancé and work visa process,” Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ron Johnson (R-WI) said. “Communication gaps between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allowed known human traffickers to bring victims into the United States. This is on the heels of the attack in San Bernardino, in which terrorists used the fiancé visa program to gain entry into the United States and attack Americans on U.S. soil.

“These failures demand a thorough review of the U.S. visa system. We must find out how federal agencies are communicating with one another to ensure that dangerous individuals are not able to exploit these programs.”