Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid (NV) Pushed Visa Applications For Alleged Fraudsters, Wealthy Fore

Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid (NV) pushed the Department of Homeland Security to process applications under a visa program for wealthy foreign investors in support of a Las Vegas hotel project.

Questions about the SLS Hotel project in Las Vegas first gained attention when an article in The Washington Times revealed that Homeland Security expedited the processing of investor visas after Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) and his staff began prodding the department to move faster. Reid aides said their push to eliminate longstanding bureaucratic hurdles with the program and was aimed at creating local jobs.

One of the hotel project investors submitted a visa application with “forged and fraudulent documents.”

In a particularly glaring case, investigators found an applicant who had previously been refused entry into the U.S., and who submitted his application “with forged and fraudulent documents.” “It is suspected that entry into the U.S. was to knowingly enter into a marriage fraud scheme,” the report states. The determination of this review: “Fraud found.”

Another visa applicant was married to a woman suspected of receiving payments from a child pornography web site.

Inside the immigration agency, whistleblowers said, there were serious concerns surrounding another applicant who sought to invest in the SLS Hotel project. In 2013, the applicant was flagged by FBI agents who had been reviewing EB-5 cases. “Please really look” at the applicant, the FBI agent urged in one email. Immigration officials conducting background checks on the man found that his wife was a possible match for a woman who had received payments from people accessing a child pornography web site.