Speech #1100153518

I appreciate the negotiations that have taken it down to a 7year reauthorization. I would have preferred it be substantially less. However. information that has been made available to me after such time as we took action on the bill in the Judiciary Committee gives me some hope that USCIS. the U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services. has already taken some steps that likely would have reduced the percentage and certainly reduced the number of fraud cases. As I look at the verbal report from Director Emilio Gonzalez. the 2005 Religious Worker Visa applications were something slightly above 4.000 out of the 5.000 cap that is in the authorization. That was 2005. So that would be the year by which we have seen the highest percentage of fraud in the reports that I have seen. Madam Speaker. In 2006. the applications. by the report language that I received. is 3.048. So we have seen these numbers going down. presumably because of the increased scrutiny on the Religious Worker Visa applications. Then by 2007 we only saw. and this is by a verbal report from the director. 454 Religious Worker Visa applications. That is a dramatic 80some percent reduction in the number of visa applications. I think it is safe to conclude that a significant amount of this. Madam Speaker. is the result of increased scrutiny on the part of USCIS. We need to be taking a particular look still. and I intend to sit down with Director Gonzalez and talk this through so I can get a full understanding of the decisions they made. the timing of their decisions and how that might have affected the Religious Worker Visa applications. But as I look through their report. I see a couple or three places that we should be looking.