News > Immigration In The United States
DHS: Telephone callers pretend to be immigration employees, target immigrants for identity theft
Posted on Apr 27 2017
Warning! According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), scammers are trying to steal personal information by pretending to be immigration officials. [Para Español, haga clic aquí.] According to the DHS alert, the scammers make it seem that they are calling from an official DHS telephone number. That is called spoofing – hiding the caller’s real telephone number and making it look like they are calling from a different number. This is a way that criminals try to steal from people, and try to get personal information and commit identity theft.
The scammers calling from the DHS number pretend to be U.S. immigration employees. They demand to obtain or verify personally identifiable information. Sometimes they even say that the person they are calling is a victim of identity theft, and that they are trying to help.
If someone calls you and asks for personal information or payment, HANG UP THE PHONE.
The real DHS Hotline is used only to give out information and answer questions, never to ask you for information.
The U.S. Citizenship and Information Service (USCIS) says that anyone who wants information about their immigration case or status, can find that information in three ways:
- Call the National Customer Service Center at 800-375-5283 to ask if you need to do anything about your case or immigration status,
- Make an InfoPass appointment at https://my.uscis.gov/en/appointment
- Use my USCIS to find up-to-date information about your application. <https://egov.uscis.gov/casestatus/landing.do>
The Department of Homeland Security also wants people to help in tracking the criminals who are pretending to be immigration officials. They say:
“Anyone who believes they may have been a victim of this telephone spoofing scam is urged to call our Hotline or file a complaint online via the DHS OIG website www.oig.dhs.gov. You may also contact the Federal Trade Commission to file a complaint and/or report identity theft.”
The number of the DHS/OIG hotline is 1-800-323-8603.