Former Journalist

Elena Maria Lopez developed the nasty habit of chain-smoking cigars during her violent immigration fraud case and divorce. She justified it as her “Buddhist breathing technique.” In reality, she was trying to cope with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder - PTSD.  

Developing PTSD was not only a reaction to her Dutch husband’s repeated violent attacks, but the refusal of congressional members, bureaucrats and various levels of law enforcement to protect her from a violent man that mental-health professionals describe as a sociopath -- and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described as "dangerous."

She soon turned from immigration fraud victim to whistleblower.  She set up the very first website, ImmigrationFraud.com, providing  background, data, legal information and news on immigration fraud. 

For years, she’s had high-ranking members of congress, the Department of Homeland Security, the F.B.I., think tanks, attorneys, investigators and journalists contacting her for background, data, research and national-security trends regarding immigration fraud. 

In 2018, Lopez twice presented a series of national security immigration fraud cases at White House meetings. These involved foreign spouses using loopholes to bypass background checks, hide criminal activities and then quickly remarry active military with high-level security clearances. Many of these security risks lived on U.S. military bases and fraudulently sought federal benefits.

The FBI contacted her about these cases in 2016. 

Lopez first started warning government officials about the dangerous loopholes responsible back in 2006. She first discovered and raised the flag on the national-security clusters in 2012 with congressional leadership and administration officials. 

Rather than close the temporary loopholes responsible, congress and the president made them permanent law in 2013. 

Lopez fails to understand why politicians put the needs of foreign nationals before those of their own U.S. citizen constituents.  She regularly calls out both Republicans and Democrats by demanding protections for both natural-born and naturalized American citizens. 

Such political demands are not "anti-immigrant" or racist: Many of the fraud victims she's worked with for the past 15 years are people of color, Latinos, multi-racial, LGBTQ, first-generation Americans and naturalized U.S. citizens. Immigration fraud victims come from every socio-economic, racial, ethnic, educational and geographic background.

Lopez is biracial, Latina, and hails from the racially and ethnically diverse state of New Jersey.  

A former political journalist and financial writer, Lopez now tirelessly lobbies congress to change immigration laws victimizing Americans and the nation's security. 

Luckily, Lopez has since quit chain-smoking cigars ... but is leaving it open as a viable option thanks to increased stress and continued government incompetence. 

Although she is a domestic-violence victim put in hiding by the State of New Jersey, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) voluntarily and illegally dumped her sensitive personal information onto the Internet and gave it to various media organizations in 2017. 

This was a year after the DHS warned her that her ex-husband still poses a serious threat to her safety. Yet, the agency still refused to deport him. 

By breaking its own privacy laws and failing to enforce immigration law, the federal government has repeatedly put Lopez in serious physical danger. 

As of 2022, she's continued to tie other security breaches of her personal information to the Department of Homeland Security.