Barely a week after local authorities shut down an illegal “birth tourism” center in San Gabriel, (Los Angeles County) Calif., federal immigration agents arrested an “Orange County” family at their home in nearby Yorba Linda for ginning up bogus marriages for much the same purpose: smuggling illegals into the country through loopholes in the law.
According to the Associated Press, the “Orange County” couple is named Ajit and Nisha Bhargava. Their daughter and offspring in crime is named Runjhun.
Federal prosecutors told the news service the “Orange County” family has been arrested and charged with visa fraud.
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Authorities said the Bhargavas ran immigration services company MPEagle Consultants in Cerritos, Calif., and charged as much as $60,000 to arrange bogus marriages for foreigners who came to the country on visas, mostly from India.
Authorities said the Bhargavas used the same witnesses, and sometimes, the same U.S. citizen spouse, on multiple green card applications, and had the couple take photographs in different locations wearing different outfits to make it look like they had a relationship.
Immigration officers noticed the pattern and forwarded 21 similar-looking cases to investigators at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Apparently, as AP reports, the business was not only lucrative but also exhausting and demanding, as one might think of running a factory that manufactures phony Americans.
“They were just recycling marriage certificates. They were even using the same witnesses, a couple of applications had the same U.S. spouse,” said Joseph Macias, who heads ICE’s homeland security investigations in Orange County. “It got to the point where they didn’t care.
“They thought they were just kind of above the law.”
Authorities allege the “Orange County” family recruited indigent street people to enter into faux marriages for a promised payment of $2,000, but in many cases, they didn’t cough up the money.
Birth Tourism
Just last week, authorities in San Gabriel shut down a Chinese birth tourism center. Such centers provide a place for foreign women to give birth to anchor babies that will become valuable to them when they turn 21.
According to VDare.com, which provided a translation from ChineseBabyCare.com, the benefits of giving birth in the United States are many:
1. If your child is born in America, he will immediately have U.S. nationality and will enjoy the rights of a citizen. When the child is 21, the parents can apply to be sponsored as family members, will have a permanent green card, will not have to wait their turn for the quota, and it will provide the basis for future immigration
2. In terms of the environment and education, the U.S. is the most advanced state in the world, and your child will be able to attend U.S. public schools from primary school to senior high school without any tuition fees at all.
3. Your child will pay only 10% of the tuition fees paid by foreign students in state universities and research institutes, and it will be easy for him to enrol in famous universities.
And that’s not all. “Your American child” will also receive one-percent student loans and “preferential treatment” in getting top jobs in government and private business. Even better, the child “will enjoy access to all American social welfare measures and medical facilities.”
The birth center in California is not the first which authorities have found. They discovered a Turkish hotel performing the same service in New York.
Thus, if one couldn’t have given birth to steal the benefits of American citizenship, marriage to a hobo was a possibility thanks to the services of an “Orange County” couple named Bhargava. It beats swimming the Rio Grande.
