Woman exposed running visa fraud scheme spanning years, posing as immigration officer
A 29-year-old Texas woman is now in custody and facing federal fraud charges after allegedly impersonating an immigration officer in a multi-year visa fraud scheme.
Mayra Collins, a resident of Brownsville, a city on the far southern tip of Texas, is facing five counts of fraudulently posing as a federal agent with various agencies in 2022 and 2025, Acting U.S. Attorney John Marck announced.
The charges against Collins are for two counts of wire fraud and three counts of impersonating a federal agent, according to local affiliate Fox 26.
The DOJ said Collins first allegedly posed as a federal immigration officer. She allegedly falsely represented that she could expedite the process for obtaining U.S. visas and took money from four victims. In 2025, Collins also allegedly impersonated a Border Patrol agent with influence over the hiring of federal employees. She allegedly told one victim there were job positions available, but that they needed to send her money for uniforms and ballistic vests before beginning employment with Border Patrol.
According to the DOJ, Collins "never worked for the United States" and "had no power to provide victims of her schemes with Visas or employment" with Border Patrol.
The woman is now facing up to 20 years in federal prison for the two counts of wire fraud and another three years for the impersonation charges. She is also facing a maximum fine of $250,000.
She is expected to make her initial court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Julie Hampton this Thursday.
Lora Ries, an immigration policy expert with the Heritage Foundation, explained that "the needless complexity of immigration law and the fragmented immigration bureaucracy spread across five federal departments are fertile ground for fraudsters."
Ries, who is director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital that Democrats "helped create these systemic conditions because they facilitate illegal immigration."
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"This perpetrator exploiting that confusing and scattered system is a consequence of their own making," Ries said.
She noted that "Congress should greatly simplify immigration law and consolidate many of the immigration agencies for a better immigration system and to prevent such fraud."
This comes as the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security ramp up the federal government’s investigation into a massive fraud scheme largely involving the Somali immigrant community in Minnesota. Federal officials raided 22 alleged fraud sites Tuesday morning.
The raids center on federal fraud investigations into largely Somali-owned businesses, including childcare facilities that registered their daycare with the state but were allegedly billing for care that was not provided.
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Following news of the raids breaking, Vice President JD Vance, head of the administration’s fraud task force, remarked that the "task force and the DOJ will be relentless in exposing these fraudsters wherever they may be hiding."
Commenting on the Minnesota crackdown, Ries told Fox News Digital that "Americans, particularly Minnesotans, are pleased to see the ongoing pursuit of justice against fraud in that state."
"We’ve only seen a glimpse of both the immigration fraud and welfare fraud that have occurred in Minnesota," she said, adding, "Significant criminal and immigration consequences are needed for all the perpetrators to achieve justice and to send a message to others throughout the country not to engage in fraud."