No problems so far, the immigration agent told the American citizen and his 22-year-old Colombian wife at her green card interview in December. After he stapled one of their wedding photos to her application for legal permanent residency, he had just one more question: What was her cellphone number?

The calls from the agent started three days later. He hinted, she said, at his power to derail her life and deport her relatives, alluding to a brush she had with the law before her marriage. He summoned her to a private meeting. And at noon on Dec. 21, in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, he named his price — not realizing that she was recording everything on the cellphone in her purse.

 

“I want sex,” he said on the recording. “One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”

The woman's story is hard to read, particularly the end, when we find out that her husband left her over the ordeal and she still has not received her green card.  

The article lists several similar incidents that have happened in recent years, and recalls 2006 testimony by Michael Maxwell, the former director of the Office of Security and Investigations for USCIS Internal Affairs, who told Congress that "internal corruption was 'rampant,' and that employees faced constant temptations to commit crime."

“It is only a small step from granting a discretionary waiver of an eligibility rule to asking for a favor or taking a bribe in exchange for granting that waiver,” he contended. “Once an employee learns he can get away with low-level corruption and still advance up the ranks, he or she becomes more brazen.”

In almost every aspect of the U.S. immgiration system, the lives of hopeful, often vulnerable and scared, immigrant men and women lie with government employees who have little oversight. It's no wonder that even the process of applying for a green card is as fraught with danger and abuse as the deportation and detention process. Just a week ago, in response to a report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants that the U.S. immigration system violates international human rights law, a government official told the media: "The United States has one of the most generous migration programs in the world, including a clear path to citizenship."

Today, Americans need look no further than The New York Times to know that just isn't true.