Posted on 12/16/2014 7:27:16 PM PST by kristinn
New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud.
The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party.
Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant women to the U.S. to work as maids at her parents’ mansion in Coral Gables, Fla.
U.S. officials alleged Estefania Isaias had falsely claimed the women were her personal business assistants. Sources familiar with the matter said U.S. consular officials in Ecuador categorized her alleged wrongdoing as a form of “human smuggling.”
Estefania Isaias did not return repeated calls for comment.
After she was banned in 2007, Estefania Isaias was able to obtain numerous short-term waivers from the U.S. government, according to sources familiar with her case.
Those waivers allowed her in part to visit her father Roberto Isaias in Miami where he lives and runs several businesses. Roberto Isaias is a fugitive banker fighting extradition to Ecuador, where he was convicted in absentia for allegedly embezzling millions from the Filanbanco bank he once helped run.
In 2011, current and former officials said, the U.S. Consulate decided there should be no more waivers for Estefania Isaias. They had grown increasingly concerned about allegations of visa fraud by Estefania and other wrongdoing by her family, sources familiar with the case said.
The Isaias family turned to Sen. Robert Menendez for help, sources said.
Around that time, Isaias family members in Florida made campaign donations: more than $11,000 to Senator Menendez’s 2012 campaign, and more than $125,000 to the Obama Victory Fund and the Democratic National Committee.
SNIP
9. Thanks for the info on La Raza. The American Castro Brothers’ mother led it and possible was one of its creators.
Good catch.
Also may tie into Rafael Correa and FARC (-> Hugo Chavez).
And Menendez got involved in the Snowden case in Ecuador, prompting a $23 million payment to the U.S. from Correa for “human rights training”.
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