March 1, 2007

Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces

Immigration fraud poses a severe threat to national security and public safety because it creates a vulnerability that may enable terrorists, criminals and illegal aliens to gain entry to and remain in the United States . ICE uproots the infrastructure of illegal immigration by detecting and deterring immigration fraud.

• Benefit fraud is the knowing and willful misrepresentation of material fact on a petition or application to gain an immigrant benefit.


• Document fraud is the manufacturing, counterfeiting, alternation, sale, and/or use of identity documents and other fraudulent documents to circumvent immigration laws or for other criminal activity.

Individuals and criminal enterprises often use fraudulent documents to obtain drivers' licenses and social security cards. Traffickers and alien smugglers use these documents to facilitate movement into and within the United States and they are also used to shield illegal aliens from detection within our society. Fraudulent documents may be used to obtain financial benefits and entitlements intended for US citizens or lawful permanent residents and to obtain unauthorized employment.

Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces (DBFTFs) were created in March 2006, to target, seize illicit proceeds of and dismantle the criminal organizations that threaten national security and public safety and address the vulnerabilities that currently exist in the immigration process. Through DBFTFs, ICE partners with other agencies such as the Department of Labor, the Social Security Administration, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of State and various state and local law enforcement agencies. These task forces focus their efforts on detecting, deterring and disrupting both benefit fraud and document fraud.

Based on a successful existing task force in the Washington, D.C./ Northern Virginia area, additional task forces are located in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and St. Paul. Whether or not a formal DBFTF currently exists in an area, vigorous document and benefit fraud investigations are being conducted by ICE throughout the United States .

Recent successes include:

• ICE agents in Newark, together with the U.S. Department of Labor seized over $5.7 million in a labor certification, immigration fraud investigation involving Indian and Pakistani nationals.


• ICE agents in Los Angeles, together with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and state and local law enforcement partners criminally arrested 44 targets, seized over $500,000 and dismantled a large-scale marriage fraud ring responsible for hundreds of fraudulent marriages involving Chinese and Vietnamese nationals.


• ICE agents in Baltimore, together with the U.S. Department of Labor arrested Irwin J. Fredman, a private immigration lawyer responsible for filing hundreds of fraudulent applications with the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This case resulted in Fredman agreeing to forfeit $200,000 to the government.

ICE agents in Denver dismantled the Castorena family organization, responsible for producing millions of fraudulent identification documents including resident alien cards, social security cards, driver's licenses and a host of other documents. This organization franchised their document producing facilities and documents produced by this organization have been seized in all 50 states.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of five integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.

  Last Modified: