Two New York men have been arrested and charged with staging fake armed robberies in order to make their targets eligible for a special visa for victims of violent crime. The two men, Rambhai Patel, 36, and Balwinder Singh, 39, are accused of carrying out the scheme in at least eight locations throughout the United States.
The alleged scheme involved Patel staging robberies at liquor stores, convenience stores, and fast food establishments, sometimes with the help of Singh. The victims in the scheme reportedly paid Patel, and some store owners even charged him to allow the fake robberies to take place.
The U visa, which is intended to help foreign nationals who are victims of violent crimes collaborate with the police, comes with substantial immigration benefits, including protection from deportation and the possibility to apply for permanent residency. However, there is a large backlog of U visa applications, with long wait times for work authorization and obtaining the visa itself.
According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, there is a pending backlog of 344,600 U visa applications. This means that applicants can expect to wait about five years for work authorization and 10 years to actually get the visa.
The arrested individuals could have potentially faced these long wait times as U visa applicants, but as such, they would not have been targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The protection offered by the U visa is subject to change from administration to administration. The long wait times for the U visa mean that an application filed under one presidential administration might be decided under a different administration with a different immigration agenda.
These arrests bring attention to the U visa program, its benefits, and the challenges that applicants face in obtaining this visa.
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