Surprise visits from immigration agents frighten prospective citizens

Immigrants on the verge of becoming naturalized citizens are getting surprise home visits from federal agents who want to interview them about their applications without their lawyers.

Immigration attorneys say dozens of green-card holders recently had in-office interviews canceled by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) only to have federal agents show up at their homes with no warning.

It’s the latest example of how legal immigrants who are in the process of becoming naturalized citizens are also subject to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Federal officials say they’ve increased scrutiny on potential citizens to reduce fraud.

On Nov. 13, USCIS announced several steps it was taking to increase the scrutiny of potential citizens. In addition to reviving regular home visits for the first time since 1991, the agency is adding questions to the citizenship test and reviewing social media posts and other statements for “anti-American ideologies.”

“To better combat fraud, USCIS has intensified unannounced, in-person site visits to verify the information provided by aliens and petitioners,” Matthew Tragesser, USCIS spokesman, said in a statement. “Let us be clear: the burden of proof squarely rests on the alien to establish their eligibility for immigration benefits.”

Immigration attorney David Wilson said the shift in tactics upends 30 years of past practices that mostly eliminated home visits in favor of interviews at federal offices. He characterized USCIS showing up unannounced to question prospective citizens without their lawyers as intimidation rather than fraud prevention.

“It is such an extraordinary change in culture and approach,” Wilson said. “In 28 years of doing naturalizations, I haven’t had this many home visits in a year, let alone a weekend.”

Becoming a naturalized citizen typically takes years with layers of interviews, background checks, medical exams and other vetting. For decades, applicants and their lawyers have met with immigration agents at federal offices.

Candida Mendez Hernandez popped out to the store on a recent Saturday afternoon to pick up a few things. When she got back, two USCIS agents were inside her Minneapolis home, trying to question her younger daughter Iris.

Her older daughter Laura was undergoing an at-home dialysis treatment and Iris, who has Down syndrome and limited communication skills, let the agents in without understanding what they wanted.

“All she could tell them was, ‘Momma’s not home,’” Mendez Hernandez said through a Spanish interpreter.

Mendez Hernandez and Laura are both recently naturalized citizens and Iris’ application is pending. Her mother has requested a medical exemption for the citizenship test because of Iris’ condition and a fee waiver.

“We were scared,” Mendez Hernandez said. “It’s like they think that we’re lying. My daughter is truly disabled. She’s unable to do the typical interview. It was wrong for them to question her without me being there.”

Mendez Hernandez and her daughters’ attorney Katherine Santamaria El Bayoumi said several of her other clients also had agents come to their homes to challenge their request for certain accommodations. She’s now advising them not to speak without their attorney.

“I’ve had clients who’ve been asked a lot of invasive questions,” El Bayoumi said. “People have rights in this country. They don’t have to open the door. They can respectfully decline these visits.”

Changes to the legal immigration system come as the Twin Cities was recently the kicking-off point for what USCIS described as a “first of its kind targeted surge of fraud detection.” Federal agents probed roughly 1,000 applicants and said they detected some sort of fraud or public safety concern in 275 cases.

At a Sept. 30 news conference, USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow characterized the Twin Cities as rife with immigration fraud. He said “hundreds of bad actors will be held accountable.”

“I overwhelmingly disagree. Fraud is not rampant,” said Ashlyn Vosika-Scherzberg, director of immigration legal services for Arrive Ministries, which helps immigrants and refugees resettle in the U.S. “Everything is vetted very diligently.”

Instead, immigration attorneys, like Wilson and El Bayoumi, think USCIS has revived home visits and made other changes to the citizenship process to intimidate people with the hope they’ll abandon their requests for fee waivers and other accommodations. Some have considered withdrawing their citizenship applications entirely.