Elena's Blog

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For safety reasons, Elena can't disclose much about her current life or work activities ... other than the fact that she lives in New Jersey. 

Because New Jersey laws and institutions provide her with a level of safety and protection that federal laws, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have not!   (Read "Elena's Case.")  

In 2016, homeland security agents issued safety warnings to Elena and tried to initiate immigration enforcement actions against her ex-husband. 

Instead, these agents were brought up on internal charges for misconduct. They attempted to revoke a fraudulent green card long deemed off-limits to trained immigration investigators. 

Just one instance ...

"Trump administration's immigrant-crime hotline releases victims' personal information"

(USA Today & Arizona Republic, January, 21,  2018)

... especially when the feds protect a violent man that's promised to kill you if he ever faces deportation ... and they've also undermined your physical location and personal information.

Need a printable PDF? 

(pending ...)

In truth, I was having a mental breakdown and it was my way of dealing with it. My life, my safety, my finances and my sanity had all changed literally overnight. I was trying to figure out what was happening to me so I could better prepare myself for both divorce and immigration proceedings. I had just sponsored my husband into the country; I was financially and legally responsible for him being here. 

I quickly found out that I wasn’t alone and that far too many other Americans are being scammed. I also naively thought the immigration service should know that I was being scammed for my secret inheritance of citizenship – and that I sponsored in a violent criminal into the United States. 

Instead, the immigration bureaucracy didn’t care. It is so overwhelmed with fraud cases that unless you say you married a Muslim terrorist – plus had a taped confession with them threatening the life of the president and ammo aimed at the camera – they wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. Sadly, my husband knew this. Some of his last words to me were: “They’ll believe me rather than you. I’m clean cut, I have a good job – and I’m from Holland, not Arab.”  

Ironically, my U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania was chair of the Judiciary Committee, the committee responsible for immigration law. His staff immediately belittled my case as a “marriage dispute.” When I met him in person after congressional hearings a year later, he made jokes about my new home state of New Jersey and quickly exited the room.

My U.S. Representative’s staff in Pennsylvania offered to help me sponsor someone else into the country, but refused to get involved in whistleblowing. Yes, they actually volunteered on their own to help me sponsor someone else into the country! I hadn’t even asked for that! And this was a conservative Republican in office!

Now that I’m living back in New Jersey, I couldn’t even get Senate Booker’s office to return my calls, e-mails or letters for almost two years. Booker still refuses to even attempt including anti-fraud provisions in pending legislation or put forth any kind of law to protect his constituents from immigration fraud.

Senator Menendez’s chief counsel told me straight to my face that “the senator will do absolutely nothing to cut back on any type of immigration.” Since I had just presented him with clusters of immigration fraud cases from his state, I had to read between the lines that it also meant “fraudulent immigration.” That was a year before Menendez was indicted on federal bribery charges and allegations that he peddled in visas for a revolving door of girlfriends for a donor convicted in a $73 million Medicare fraud scheme. 

Because I’m in hiding, I can’t publicly identify my current U.S. Representative in New Jersey. Either way, that person hasn't helped me or other American victims thus far. 

And although I’m a U.S. citizen, I can’t vote since I can’t disclose my physical address. 

I started coming across other people scammed for a green card, which wasn’t hard since I lived in the North Jersey/New York area. It’s one of the largest areas for incoming foreigners – legal, illegal and on temporary visas. Many people are trying to turn their temporary student, visitor or work visas into permanent green cards and citizenship. The easiest and most common way to do that is with a quickie marriage to an American.

I couldn’t believe that nothing was out there to help people in my situation other than dry congressional testimony and court cases.  I wanted other fraud victims to understand what was happening to them, as well as the immigration process. 

I also did this in the hopes that some American victims could avoid the costly legal mistakes I made.

I had cleaned myself out with attorneys that offered no protections. Divorce and family law attorneys know next to nothing about immigration or marriage fraud, which leaves clients like me vulnerable. Immigration lawyers know all about it, but don’t want to help citizen spouses since their cases could set precedents and hurt their future client pool.

I also wanted to break down the problem for legislators, advocates and journalists so they could start accurately covering the issue.

It was when an attorney called me in a panic about her own case. This attorney had a good relationship with her ex-husband and they shared custody of their teenage son. 

When the ex-husband’s new French wife claimed abuse to get a quick domestic violence green card, California authorities threatened to put their son in foster care. The attorney found herself hustling to keep her son from being thrown into foster care while trying to find out why her ex-husband’s wife of barely two months would accuse him of something so out of character.

I’ve had countless public defenders, defense attorneys and investigators contacting me with similar types of cases and emergencies. 

Because New Jersey laws and institutions provide me with a level of safety and protection that federal laws, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have not!    

You mean other than the government repeatedly and intentionally undermining my safety? There are far too many difficult parts ...

One aspect that's getting to me, lately? Being an extrovert forced to live an introvert's life.