Reading Room Document

VISA Fraud Investigation

Although facially a violation of applicable statutes, the State Department may issue a visa to an ineligible alien in order to facilitate an undercover operation conducted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Undercover operations often involve facially illegal conduct by government officers, but courts have not held such conduct to be illegal if it is necessary to secure a permissible law enforcement objective. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/23696/download.

November 20, 1984