Wait– aren’t whistleblowers a good thing? Apparently not in the Department of Homeland Security. Taylor Johnson, a senior special agent with a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), testified at a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that she had received disciplinary action after reporting problems in her agency. Johnson said she nearly lost custody of her adopted daughter and was denied the right to own a personal firearm.
“Some of the violations investigated surrounding the project included bank and wire fraud, and I discovered ties to organized crime and high-ranking politicians and they received promotions that appeared to facilitate the program,” Johnson testified.
She said that during her investigation she “discovered that EB-5 applicants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia had been approved in as little as 16 days” and that case files “lacked the basic and necessary law enforcement queries.”
“I found over 800 operational EB-5 regional centers throughout the U.S.,” Johnson said, stating that she found this “disturbing” given that the U.S. allows only 10,000 EB-5 applications per year.
“I could not identify how USCIS was holding each regional center accountable or how they were tracked once they were inside the U.S.,” she added.
Despite her competence and engagement with her work, Johnson was treated like a traitor. Watch her video testimony below:
