President Donald Trump is allegedly wringing eye-watering sums of money from the very same people he has decided not to let into the country.
The Cato Institute, an independent think-tank based in D.C., published figures on Wednesday on what it calls “the largest fraud in the history of the U.S. immigration system.”
The non-profit accuses Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of charging a conservative estimate of $1.3 billion to migrants in fees for visa processing and other services they have precisely zero intention of providing.
The administration is allegedly continuing to impose those costs on prospective immigrants from more than 90 countries despite the fact that they are, as a result of the Trump administration’s policies, effectively “banned from receiving immigrant visas and immigrating permanently to the United States.”
Under Rubio’s leadership, officials at the State Department have apparently even gone so far as to issue internal guidance actively prohibiting staff from informing those migrants they stand no hope of success, because “this could be seen as pre-adjudication” on their applications.
“Cubans represent the largest group of affected applicants with nearly a million affected applications at a combined cost of $543 million,” the publication writes.
Rubio is of Cuban heritage. The Trump administration has increasingly threatened military action against the Caribbean island nation, which remains in the throes of a deep economic crisis marked by severe shortages of fuel, food, and medicine, along with prolonged blackouts and sky-high inflation.
“The second most common was Venezuelans, with 239,000 applications at a cost of $138 million,” the Cato Institute adds.
Trump carried out a lightning invasion of Venezuela—which has long suffered from human rights abuses, hyperinflation and economic mismanagement—to capture President Nicolas Maduro earlier in January. The attack has sparked widespread political instability and economic uncertainty, following years of financial collapse, corruption and political repression.
The fraud alleged by the Cato Institute stems from a trio of policies advanced by the Trump administration. In December, the president imposed an effective travel ban for citizens of 40 countries, disproportionately affecting nations in Africa as well as Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Haiti, because he claims it’s too hard to “vet” people from those countries.
In November, DHS froze immigration benefits for individuals from those countries already living in the U.S., while the State Department imposed an indefinite halt on visa processing for 75 countries, citing unsubstantiated claims about welfare use.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House, the State Department and DHS for comment on this story.
