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Excerpt from July 26, 2002 Press Briefing with
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
Click here for the full transcript
Q: Ari, two questions please. Two questions. One, it seems to me that this is a season of corruption and fraud. If you have seen yesterday's Washington Post --
Q: Yes or no? (Laughter.)
Q: Pick one. (Laughter.)
Q: Yesterday's Washington Post, front page story, one of the largest and maybe, perhaps, the largest immigration fraud in the U.S. history. A lawyer, Mr. Kooritzky of Capital Law firm in Virginia, over 3,000 victims, mostly from South Asia. And here at India Globe, we have been getting so many phone calls, and they are asking for White House action because he might get away, but these victims are left with nowhere. So, how President can stop all kind of this corruption in the future, especially in immigration?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think that this is one of the reasons that government is so important, in the President's opinion. It is a vital part of government to enforce the laws so that anybody in any walk of life, for whatever reason, of any background, who thinks about engaging in crimes, in fraud, in stealing money -- whether it's from their company, from their shareholders, or their employees -- is punished; whether people who would use their positions of power to do things for illegal or for reasons of bribe are punished. And this is a government that the American people have seen vigorously enforces the laws and will continue to do so.
Q: These people have paid from $10,000 to $28,000 to stay in this country to this person, and they have left nothing now. And they are working maybe $5 a job. And now they have been told that their applications are being now nowhere, because they haven't -- so what is their future, something like this? Victims of frauds, something like this?
MR. FLEISCHER: Full enforcement of the law, to vigorously investigate and prosecute and arrest, arrest and prosecute anybody who engages in such practices.