Since 2019, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been issuing fraud alerts to the public about strange phone calls purportedly made by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The calls are made to mobile phones. The recipients invariably report seeing numbers that correspond to DHS and ICE offices displayed on their touchscreens. In some cases, the numbers correspond to the regional offices of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The calls are part of scam campaigns that target immigrants. The nefarious intent of the callers is to either dupe their victims into submitting payments or get them to reveal personal information for identity theft purposes. The modus operandi of the scammers consist of two cybercrime techniques: spoofing and social engineering.
How Mobile Spoofing Works
If you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, the voice calling app has a caller ID feature that displays the phone number of an incoming call. In some cases, a text string is displayed along with the number even if the caller isn’t in your list of contacts. Through caller ID spoofing, hackers can manipulate the system, thus allowing them to disguise who they are and where they’re calling from.
The spoofing methods may involve taking advantage of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services for marketing, using special hacking tools, or exploiting vulnerabilities at the mobile service provider level. DHS has reported the following numbers as the most commonly spoofed:
- 210-979-4500 for the DHS San Antonio office in Texas
- 866-347-2423 for the main ICE tip line
- 855-882-8100 for the USCIS Ombudsman
- 202-282-800 for the DHS office in the District of Columbia
Spoofing is one part of the scam. The other consists of duping the individuals who answer the calls.
How Social Engineering Works
The incident reports collected by DHS investigators about these calls indicate hackers are using social engineering to ply their wicked trade. In essence, the callers convincingly impersonate ICE agents or USCIS adjudicators.
“Old school” hackers are often highly skilled at social engineering and speak multiple languages. This explains why many immigrants from India, China, and Vietnam have been targeted. Some of the callers speak fluently and with a slight American accent, thus sounding more believable to their victims, and they may add technical lingo, such as citing USCIS form numbers and ICE notices.
The tales woven by the callers range from threats of deportation and detention to requests to pay for immigration application fees. Some victims have been relatives of undocumented migrants. If the callers aren’t successful at extorting payments, they switch the focus of the conversations to identity theft, thus obtaining information that would allow them to get fraudulent loans and credit cards.
What you should know about these calls is that ICE agents and USCIS adjudicators will never call you unless they’ve already met you in person and asked for permission to contact you by phone. Such situations are rare because these agencies work with official notifications mailed directly to your home address or the office of your San Diego immigration attorney. If you get these calls, hang up and report them to the ICE tip line number at 866-347-2423.
If you’ve received a suspicious call claiming to be from ICE or USCIS, don’t fall for the scam. Protect yourself by staying informed and vigilant and hiring the best San Diego immigration lawyer you can find. If you need reliable, high-quality legal advice about San Diego immigration issues, reach out to the immigration law attorneys at KS Visa Law. To schedule an appointment, call us today.
