The African country of Somalia is year in, year out, rated the most corrupt country in the world. Yet — or possibly for that reason — the United States has been welcoming the country’s citizens for decades. Currently, there are about 300,000 persons of Somalian extraction in America, of whom about 100,000 live in Minnesota. Everyone is familiar with the most infamous and most obviously corrupt of those, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Rep. Omar is believed to have married her own brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to pull some scam or other, possibly to assist him in securing student loans.
Omar has never convincingly denied the sham — and illegal — marriage, but she’s still serving in the US Congress, so she seems to have gotten away with it, for now. Others of her ethnicity may not prove so lucky.
A report released on September 30 by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has revealed that half of all Somalis living in the Minneapolis area are guilty of fraud. In an immigration sweep titled Operation Twin Shield, the agency looked into more than 1,000 cases that showed evidence of fraud or ineligibility. Of them, 44 percent of the cases were indeed found to involve fraud of some kind.
The fraudulent schemes ran the gamut. Some, like that of Omar, consisted of sham marriages. Others involved fake death certificates and other counterfeit documents, Medicaid fraud, elder abuse, etc.
In comments accompanying the report, USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow said:
USCIS is declaring an all-out war on immigration fraud. We will relentlessly pursue everyone involved in undermining the integrity of our immigration system and laws. With help from ICE and the FBI, USCIS’ Operation Twin Shield was a tremendous success—hundreds of bad actors will be held accountable. Immigration fraud undermines the integrity of our lawful immigration system, harms those who follow the law, and poses risks to national security and public safety. Under President Trump, we will leave no stone unturned.
Let’s hope that a good portion of those 100K Minnesota Somalis, not to mention the 200K in the rest of the US, will be going home soon.
For more, see the NY Post.