What you should know about U -Visa and Louisiana's fraud scandal | Crime/police

Federal officials have arrested and accused a group of current and former law enforcement officers in Louisiana and a local businessman because he has supposedly illegally received a rare and limited visa.

At the center of the allegations are hundreds of U-Visas without immigrants, a less well-known status to protect the victims and the witness to crimes.

The business owner Chandrakant “Lala” Patel, the police chief of Oakdale, Chad Doyle, Oakdale City Marschall Michael “Freck” Slaney, the chief of police at Forest Hill, Glynn Dixon, and the former police chief of Glenmora, Tebo Onishea, were all arrested and accused in the program after the officers were examined for a year.

As part of the program, civil servants said that they would contact the U-Visas, Patel or another unnamed person would contact. Patel then contacted the leaders of the law enforcement authorities, including Doyle, Slaney, Dixon and Onishea, to create false police reports in which the person was listed as the victim of an armed robbery.

What is a U-visa?

After the adoption of the law on trade in victims in 2000 in 2000, the status of a non -immigrant for foreign nationals who are victims or witnesses of a list of qualified crimes and have suffered mental or physical abuse due to these crimes.

The visas were founded to support law enforcement officers in the investigation or persecution of criminal activities.

The qualified crimes include domestic violence, sexual assault, foreigners, extortion, kidnapping, extortion and more. Some family members of victims of crime who apply for a U-visa have also justified as part of the status.

Those who apply for U-visas must fill out a form 918, which must then be signed by an authorized law enforcement officer. FBI and HSI officials say that the four defendants of Louisiana each authenticated false police reports as part of the system.

If they are approved, the U-Visas granted can remain in the United States for up to four years and apply for a permanent status of the place of residence after three years. The status can also be expanded if the law enforcement authorities are requested.

How rare are you?

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, only 10,000 underwirts can be granted per year, and this upper limit has been met every year since 2010.

Due to the legal border, there has been a significant deficit of justified petents for years who were waiting to receive a U-visa. In a report from 2022 of the US office of the General Inspector, it was found that the victims will probably wait 10 years or more to obtain a U-visa.

Uscis is still working through the deficit.

“When the new financial year started on October 1, 2024, we continued the approval of the main petitions for the U-1-not immigrant status, starting with petitions submitted on or before November 30, 2016, and the oldest petitions prioritize,” says a message on the U-Visa website of the department.