It turns out that Vicky Pelaez, the Peruvian journalist expelled from the United States on July 8 along with nine Russians, obtained her U.S. citizenship by taking advantage of the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens. However, according to a report in El Commercio of Lima, Peru, Pelaez obtained her amnesty fraudulently, using a false birth certificate and falsely claiming she had been residing in the United States during a period when records, apparently, show she was actually residing in Peru.
The story in El Commercio was published in Spanish, but was translated into English and posted online by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) here.
The NAFBPO translation of the Peruvian newspaper states:
Vicky Pelaez, a Peruvian journalist just sent out of the U.S. to Russia as part of a spy swap, is reported to have two birth certificates. For U.S. officials, her name is Vicky Pelaez, she’s 55 years old, and her father is Santiago Pelaez, who in reality ought to be her uncle. However, for Peruvian officials, her name is Virginia Pelaez, she’s 58 years old and her father is Horacio Pelaez. Further, she didn’t ask for political asylum in the U.S. but instead took advantage of the "great migratory amnesty" of 1986, which worked in favor of millions of illegal aliens in the United States.
However, to be part of this amnesty, immigrants had to demonstrate that they had arrived in the U.S. prior to January 1, 1982, and that they had resided there continuously. Pelaez obtained this benefit by claiming that she had resided in New York since 1981 although she had been a reporter for "Frecuencia Latina" during 1983 and 1984, and for this reason had decided to present a different birth certificate. ("Frecuencia Latina" is a Peruvian TV network.)
When Pelaez applied for United States citizenship in 1997, she presented a marriage certificate in which she claimed to have married Anatonoljevich Vasenkov (Juan Lazaro) in 1993. The truth is that she was married ten years before the date that she claimed to U.S. officials, according to records in the city of Barranco (a suburb of Lima.)
"This case," says a NAFBPO editorial remark following the translation, "serves to illustrate the fact that mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens does not, and cannot, really establish when or where such people entered the United States, their background, or even their true identity. Fraudulent foreign documentation is easily obtained, including that relating to past criminal activity. Our leaders can proceed down that path only at the nation’s peril."
Photo of Vicky Pelaez: AP Images
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