The Diversity Visa lottery, one of America’s weirder immigration programs, appears to be a gateway for Social Security fraud, according to the findings of an inspector general’s report released last month.
Inspector General Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr. didn’t specifically blame illegal immigrants in the new study, but signaled the numbers issued legally to visa lottery winners could end up in the hands of unauthorized migrants based on previous work.
The findings are fueling calls on Capitol Hill to do away with the Diversity Lottery altogether, and to step up controls on the use of Social Security numbers so the government can lock out numbers whose use is questionable.
“The visa lottery is a flawed process for choosing permanent U.S. residents and should be eliminated,” said Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican who is sponsoring a bill to cancel the lottery.
Created as a way to ensure immigrants from underrepresented countries have a chance at entering the U.S., the DV, as it’s called, is literally a giveaway, offering 50,000 visas a year to those lucky enough to qualify and have their applications randomly selected.
DV winners are entitled to work permits and Social Security numbers — and some of them were either careless with the numbers, or intentionally gave them away to others, because hundreds of them were used repeatedly with different employers, suggesting fraud was at work.
“We believe it is questionable when a numberholder’s earnings record indicates he/she worked for a high number of employers. Prior audit work has shown that multiple individuals may use the same name and SSN to work,” Mr. O’Carroll said in his report.
Another problem was the 207 immigrants who requested three or more replacement Social Security cards — which Mr. O’Carroll also deemed “questionable.” Federal law sets a general limit of three cards per year, and 10 per lifetime — though there are several exceptions, including hardship and name changes.
Mr. Carroll did not specifically blame illegal immigrants for the numbers’ misuse, but pointed to previous audits by his office that did find illegal immigrants using Social Security numbers they stole from someone else.
Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for Social Security, said without a firm connection, it was difficult to figure out what was going on with the lottery winners, but said there was no indication that Social Security wasn’t following its own rules.
“This population may be more prone to move frequently, so loss of a card could also occur, but this alone would not be an indication of misuse of the card. In short, the report could further acknowledge the legitimate reasons for requesting a replacement card,” the spokesman said. “These legitimate reasons for requesting a card could account for the number of cards received in the case examples.”
He said businesses that worry about employees’ legal work status can verify names and numbers of new hires through the Social Security Number Verification Service.
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Republicans on Capitol Hill want to go further. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his colleagues should vote on the Legal Workforce Act, a bill that cleared his panel earlier this year and that requires all companies to use E-Verify to validate their workforce.
“Importantly, it also requires the Department of Homeland Security to lock Social Security numbers that have unusual multiple use in order to prevent identity theft and fraud,” Mr. Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, said. “We also ought to eliminate the diversity visa lottery to strengthen national security and make legal immigration work better for America.”
The DV lottery has been a target for some time for Republicans on Capitol Hill, who question its purpose in the first place, and who said the latest findings show how deeply it is pervaded with fraud.
Mr. Posey said it made no sense to randomly choose winners without any consideration for whether their work skills were a boon to the U.S. or whether they already had family or work ties here.
“No other country in the world hands out the privilege of residency to people based solely on winning a lottery,” Mr. Posey said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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