USCIS Announces Sentencing in CW1 Visa Petition Fraud Case

On May 24, 2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a news release discussing its efforts in the investigation of an immigration fraud case involving Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW1) visa petitions [PDF version]. These efforts led to the successful prosecution of the leader of the scheme.

Arlene Hart was sentenced for two counts of mail fraud in connection with “her participation in a scheme to defraud the government by submitting fraudulent documents to the USCIS California Service Center … in support of … CW1 applications for workers from the Philippines.” As part of her scheme, Hart forged the signatures of workers on the employment contracts that she submitted to the USCIS. Additionally, she falsely claimed that she had non-temporary, full-time employment for the workers.

Hart was sentenced to eight months in prison as a result of the conviction. She was also sentenced to “four months of home confinement, one year of supervised release after incarceration, and 50 hours of community service.”

The CW1 visa program is a special program for certain nonimmigrants in the Northern Mariana Islands only. The program is gradually being wound down. To see some of our recent updates on the CW1 program, please see our blog post on the conclusion of the FY-2019 CW1 lottery [see blog].