Immigration experts said people often hide some information during the immigration process, but USCIS may find that information years later and block it.
With increased scrutiny of the entire immigration process in the United States, which begins with applying for a visa or green card, mistakes made by applicants can cost us dearly.
But the errors aren’t always incomplete forms or missing information, immigration attorney John Q. Khosravi warns. According to him, the number one mistake people make on these apps is: lying.Many applicants may not lie knowingly; It may be just an oversight, but USCIS is monitoring everything, Khosravi said.“I understand the motive. Something happened years ago. You assume it’s buried. You assume the government won’t find out.”
That assumption is more dangerous today than it has ever been, the attorney said, explaining that USCIS has sophisticated tools to check your travel history and banking records.“Over the past decade, USCIS has built access to remarkably powerful databases and resources. They can see your credit report, your banking activity, and your travel history. They connect dots that used to remain disconnected. Red flags that used to seep through now appear before the officer even picks up the phone.”
“The thinking that drives people to lie is usually the same,” Khosravi said. “They believe the risk of revealing something is low. They believe that the upside of hiding something outweighs the downside of coming clean. Both of these calculations are wrong in today’s environment, and the consequences of being caught are dire. We are talking about denials, permanent deprivation, and in serious cases, criminal exposure.”Another immigration strategist, Tejeshwani Singh, said you may get a green card even after suppressing some of the truth, but it may resurface when you apply for your citizenship.“The risk calculation problem goes beyond just lying. People also selectively omit a lie — not technically a lie, but they’re treated the same way when it’s discovered. The mental model of ‘they probably won’t find it’ has never been more dangerous because the question isn’t whether USCIS will find it today. It’s whether it will show up at naturalization, at reentry screening, or in future years of application. Immigration history doesn’t have a statute of limitations in the way most people assume.” Singh said.
