Some illegal immigrants are faking being crime victims to obtain special visas that allow them to remain in the United States for as long as four years and grant access to many benefits.
"I'm sure there are others like this," George Miller, a lawyer in the Charlotte, N.C., area who handles immigration cases, told
WSOC-TV. "I have seen cases that have come to my office.
"I have seen some that I've felt like possibly fraud was involved — and I wasn't going to be involved with it and I told the people so," Miller said.
The document is called a U-Visa, which the federal government provides to victims of certain — though mostly violent — crimes and their families, WSOC reports.
The government grants as many 10,000 a year, and simply applying for one could delay or even stop deportation hearings. The visa gives illegals a start on the legal residency process and, eventually, U.S. citizenship.
Putting in an application provides access to healthcare and other benefits, WSOC reports.
"Without a U-Visa I wouldn't have help with my medicines, Christian Fernandez, a Charlotte resident who was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, told the station. "I'd probably be dead right now."
Six years ago, Fernandez was shot outside a local club and remains paralyzed from the waist down. He applied for a U-Visa last year, WSOC reports.
The Charlotte-area police department has had more than 700 applications for U-Visas this year. Local authorities are part of the evaluation process, the report says.
In one of the cases the police determined to be a fraud, a man told authorities in May that he was robbed of $6,000 by two men in a local parking lot.
But police later found that the purported victim had staged the robbery so he could get a U-Visa because of an upcoming immigration hearing, WSOC reports.
Despite such cases, fraudulent claims are rare, said Adriana Galvez-Taylor, a lawyer with the Latin-American Coalition in Charlotte.
"I've heard that story often," she told WSOC. "That does happen."
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