Scammers gouge these Californians. 2 proposals aim to protect Fresno immigrants
This story is part of the Central Valley News Collaborative — a bilingual, community journalism project funded by the Central Valley Community Foundation and with technology and training support from Microsoft Corp. The collaboration includes The Fresno Bee, Valley Public Radio, Vida en el Valle, Radio Bilingüe and the Institute for Media & Public Trust at Fresno State.
As hopes for a national immigration overhaul grow, California legislators are bracing themselves for an uptick in scams and fraudulent activity perpetrated by self-proclaimed immigration consultants against undocumented residents seeking a pathway to citizenship.
In response, a Central Valley lawmaker has introduced a bill that would put limitations and new restrictions on practicing immigration consultants. While some immigration consultants say their practice is a low-cost but effective method of supporting people through a complex legal process, experts and advocates charge that many — especially those who call themselves “notarios públicos” — are unscrupulous actors who defraud unsuspecting immigrants.
The problem begins with a misleading translation, experts say. In Mexico and some Latin American countries, notarios are considered highly trained legal professionals or lawyers. In the United States, meanwhile, unaccredited or unlicensed consultants use this term to their advantage, misrepresenting what they are qualified to do. And when they take on immigration cases beyond their scope of practice, they jeopardize their clients’ chances of obtaining legal status.
In Fresno, where immigration-related fraud has been a longstanding problem, city leaders are drafting a new ordinance that would build on the statewide bill. It would create stricter penalties and require consultants to obtain a business license and provide a signed, written contract of the services rendered. The ordinance would also ban consultants from advertising themselves as notarios públicos, a move some lawmakers say is long overdue.
The City Council is expected to vote on the ordinance May 27.
“In our immigrant communities’ native countries, the term carries authority and legal powers, a different capacity from the term ‘notary public’ utilized in the U.S.,” said Fresno City Council President Luis Chavez. “Quite frankly, there are a lot of businesses that take advantage of the hopes and dreams of people that want to legalize their process. We want to be a partner and provide a space where folks feel comfortable disclosing these types of problems that we know have been in the city of Fresno, but that have never really been brought forward before.”
What is immigration fraud?
Immigration consultants are allowed to help to fill out paperwork, translate documents and submit forms to government agencies. They are not attorneys and are not permitted to give legal advice, tell clients which forms to fill out, or represent people in court.
Immigration consultants sometimes file forms successfully for clients, which helps them gain more business through word of mouth, said Lazaro Salazar, a Fresno-based attorney who primarily focuses on immigration law. He said immigrants working in the agricultural industry who don’t speak English and have lower educational levels are most vulnerable.
“A lot of the people who do this type of work and who don’t follow the rules do often fill out forms that are done successfully, and so that further creates a reliance on them,” he said. “So there’s a trust factor and there’s a name recognition factor, but the reality is people who are doing this work aren’t doing it based on the requirements and limitations that the state imposes on them.”
But sometimes, immigration consultants file the wrong forms on behalf of their clients, Salazar said. Unqualified consultants who don’t understand the complexities of immigration law can easily make a mistake, leaving an applicant in a worse legal situation, he said.
Some errors can have dire results.
People could commit perjury if they answer questions incorrectly or lie on immigration documents. If found guilty, they could be removed from the U.S. and sent back to their home countries for at least 10 years before they would be allowed to reenter. At that point, it wouldn’t matter whether the immigrant made an honest error or was misguided by an immigration consultant.
“It’s a huge, huge consequence,” Salazar said. “In order to do immigration work, you must engage in legal analysis. There is no way you can determine somebody’s eligibility without asking the right questions… and technically if that consultant starts asking the right questions, now they’re engaged in what’s called ‘unauthorized practice of law.’”
Bill Anderson, the vice president of government affairs at the National Notary Association, agreed that some services should only be handled by attorneys. He said certain forms — such as asylum applications — require a thorough understanding of immigration law and should only be completed with the help of an attorney.
“These are the types of forms that clearly require the practice of law and that an attorney should only handle,” he said.
He said authorized notaries and immigration consultants have been fighting to disentangle themselves from people who call themselves notarios.
“We’ve been fighting this for 60 years,” he said. “It detracts from the good notaries out there doing what they are by law allowed to do. Immigration consultants that we know do not use that term, it’s the ones that are not regulated and bonded.”
Consultant: ‘The problem is corruption’
Some immigration consultants say their practice alone isn’t to blame.
Fresno-based immigration consultant Iliana Silva acknowledged that fraud runs rampant within the consultancy business, but said some attorneys are also culpable. During her eight years in business, she said she’s seen a handful of immigration attorneys charge clients exorbitant fees for services they don’t complete.
“The problem is corruption, it’s not immigration consultants,” she said. “I’m just amazed at the amount of money that these attorneys take. They say that there’s no bigger thief than an attorney... they take your money and then they don’t help you.”
It’s challenging to determine what immigration consultants and attorneys each charge for their services, and how their prices compare. With both, clients can be left with hefty bills that could cost them thousands of dollars.
Silva said many businesses like hers provide immigrants with ethical consulting services at an affordable rate. And unlike busy attorneys, she said, consultants typically have time to get to know their clients and explain the immigration process to them.
“I really like what I do because it’s very gratifying when people come back with their green card, citizenship, work visa or whatever you’re doing for them and they tell you, ‘thank you,’” she said.
National immigration talks spark statewide effort
State Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat who represents parts of Madera and Merced counties, is spearheading the current attempt to tackle immigration fraud in Sacramento.
With a renewed push for immigration reform brewing in Congress, Caballero said it is imperative California passes SB 670, her latest bill that takes aim at the immigration consultancy business.
Caballero previously authored AB 638 with San Diego Democratic Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher. The 2017 bill would’ve put an end to the immigration consultancy business entirely by making it unlawful for anyone to act in the capacity of an immigration consultant if they weren’t authorized to practice law in California, authorized to represent others under federal law in an immigration matter, or a paralegal acting under the active supervision of an attorney. The bill failed to gain enough support in the Senate.
“I’m convinced that we’re going to see immigration reform in the near future,” Caballero said in an interview with The Bee. “There will be a need for people to fill out papers and to get the documents that they need to prove that they actually have been here and they’ve been working and paying taxes. And when that happens, we’re going to need our system fixed.”
Current law mandates all individuals working at a consultancy business pay a $100,000 bond, register with the Secretary of State, and show that they have no criminal record. Caballero said consultants often ignore or don’t comply with these regulations.
Caballero’s bill would set new limitations on the kind of services immigration consultants can offer, including prohibiting them from completing specific forms.
Under the bill, consultants would have to make it clear to their clients that they are not providing legal advice and provide a signed receipt and contract for all completed services. The bill would set limits on how much money consultants can charge for a service and create stronger consumer protections, Caballero said, by allowing clients to seek a refund within three days of receiving a contract.
It would also prevent consultants from continuing to advertise themselves as immigration consultants or specialists. Instead, they would be renamed “form preparers,” a term Caballero says will more clearly define the services they are authorized to provide.
“We want to clarify that you can’t use certain words when you’re describing the work that you do,” she said. “What we want to be able to do is to reduce the number of instances where these kinds of activities happen and then create an opportunity for locals to be able to go in and to catch the bad actors and shut down their business.”
In addition, lawmakers are considering several amendments, including one that would preventing new consultants from registering with the state — a move that would effectively phase out the business in the future.
Anderson of the National Notary Association said the bill is “well-balanced,” but he said he can’t support all of it. He said consultant fees should not be capped, adding that prohibiting new consultants from starting their own businesses will only hurt immigrants and their families.
“There are roughly 1,000 immigration consultants today — these are small businesses and a great number of them are run by immigrants themselves who got into this because they had to go through the whole process years ago,” he said. “We already do not have enough service providers to service immigrants. Why would we be restricting the number? We need to have more. The need is far too great.”
The measure currently sits in the Appropriations Committee. Though it could come to a Senate floor vote as early as May 31, Caballero said the Assembly probably wouldn’t take up the bill until June. And if the bill passes, it would not be enacted until July 2022.
That’s why many advocates say enacting a local ordinance, like the one proposed by Fresno city leaders, would be a faster solution to help combat the potential rise in scams. If passed by the City Council, the new ordinance would go into effect 30 days from the date of approval.
“The current rules at the state level are not sufficient,” said Mario Gonzalez, deputy director of the nonprofit organization Centro La Familia. “There has to be some kind of change to ensure that individuals do not practice law unless they are authorized by some kind of legal entity and held accountable.”
This story was originally published May 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.