A Georgia man posing as an immigration attorney has been charged with fraud. The victims, who were undocumented Guyanese immigrants, paid him thousands of dollars to obtain green cards, but are now faced with deportation because of the mistakes he made. At the moment, there is no immigration relief for victims of fraud, only for victims of violent crimes.
Immigration fraud often has irreparable consequences for the victims, such as deportation and potentially being barred from re-entering the U.S. In Colorado, document filing services such as the Immigration Center, charged victims hundreds of dollars for documents available for free on USCIS.gov. John Suthers, Colorado’s 37th attorney general, recently wrote an editorial about the Immigration Center, which was published in The Pueblo Chieftan.
In Colorado, the perpetrators of this type of fraud are these so-called document filing services, and notarios. There are only two types of people who can legally provide immigration assistance or represent immigrants in immigration matters – licensed attorneys, and recognized representatives of non-profit organizations. People who advertise themselves as notarios, or notario publicos, are not licensed attorneys, and can not represent aliens in immigration court. Sometimes the damage they do to innocent immigrants’ petitions is irreparable, and leads to deportation and bars to re-entry.