Ticket to Nowhere

Shady consultants lure immigrants with a dream that can't be bought

The first time Raul Martinez Garcia tried to leap aboard a northbound freight train, his hands slipped. As he somersaulted to the ground, he feared being pulled under the wheels and crushed to death.

A few days before the failed jump in 1993, the Mexican national who had illegally crossed the border in El Paso sat behind a sand hill inside a Las Cruces rail yard. There, he listened to more experienced riders—accustomed to traveling by unauthorized rail to look for seasonal work—share the best methods to grab hold of rolling cargo cars.

The train-hopping techniques, Martinez Garcia knew, couldn't be practiced. For migrants it's a lesson learned on the run.

Undeterred by the pain in his now seriously bruised shoulder, Martinez Garcia reached for the iron again. The next night, with a powerful vault and a firm grip, he safely landed on a car's stairs and looked down at tracks he prayed would lead him to a job and enough money to support his young family and US-born child.

Nearly two decades years after the risky journey, Martinez Garcia, now a father of four, jumped again. But this time his hands weren't stretched toward a moving BNSF railcar.

In 2012, with encouragement from his wife and friends, he decided to apply for a coveted US Citizenship and Immigration Services-issued green card. Having permanent residency would allow Martinez Garcia to finally come out of the shadows and raise his children without the threat of deportation and a lifetime separated from his family.

But filing the federal application would prove to be a costly decision for the hard-working window and door installer. Martinez Garcia, now 38 and living in Albuquerque, was about to become the victim of a sketchy immigration consultant intent on making easy money.

Luis Morejon had been recommended by family friends after he helped others gain permits. Yet Martinez Garcia and his wife, who already has permanent residency status, did not know that Morejon was prohibited under state and federal laws from providing legal counsel or completing any government immigration forms on behalf of clients.

Disregarding New Mexico's Immigration and Nationality Law Practice Act, which is supposed to prevent non-lawyers from presenting themselves as licensed immigration practitioners, Morejon fraudulently assured the young couple he could help Martinez Garcia get a waiver.

The promise must have sounded like a dream come true, but Morejon's misleading guarantees, and similar promises made by other self-described immigration consultants operating in New Mexico, can have serious repercussions on people's lives. In fact, the consequence of poor representation and poorly prepared forms for unqualified immigrants is often swift and sure deportation.

For desperate immigrants, unable to pay pricey legal retainers to competent attorneys, working with the "consultants" might appear to be their best last-ditch option. It's something local nonprofit Adelante's experienced attorney Allegra Love hears about all the time.

"Immigration laws are complicated and hard to understand. There are no simple formulas. There are no generic answers," says Love, who admits that after five years she still has to look things up. "Without expertise, things can easily get all bungled up."

Even small paperwork mistakes can blow up and put people at risk. But in Martinez Garcia's case, paperwork should never have been submitted to the feds in the first place. If he'd been working for a qualified nonprofit entity or trained in the law, Morejon would have been able to determine that Martinez Garcia was ineligible for a green card due to his illegal reentry into the country after being detained at the border years before. Looking for a fast buck, instead of asking questions about the arrest, Morejon simply asked for money to start the application process.

"We trusted him," says Martinez Garcia, who scrambled to put together Morejon's quoted $2,500 fee. "I thought we'd found a way to make things right. It was important to us," says Martinez Garcia.

Filled with optimism and carrying a large money order, Martinez Garcia returned to Morejon's office in Albuquerque's south valley.

It was the worst mistake he could have made. Fifteen days after his application was submitted, a letter arrived from US Customs and Immigration Services administrators. Because it was written in English, he turned to Morejon for help interpreting. The consultant quickly reassured him that the agency stated it had received his application and the government was reviewing his case.

"We were very happy," he says.

With everything looking up, Martinez Garcia made another $500 payment to Morejon.

"I felt like I was finally going to be legal in this country," says Martinez Garcia.

But things slowly began to sour. When Morejon discovered that Martinez Garcia wasn't eligible for a waiver, he quickly became disinterested in the case and began to avoid contact with him.

"He stopped taking our phone calls," says Martinez Garcia. "We went to his house a few times, but his wife always told us he wasn't there."

Back at home, Martinez Garcia clung to hope—unaware the fingerprints he'd submitted with his application had alerted the feds to his prior arrest. Agency officials were obligated to forward his name to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement fugitive team for pickup.

Martinez Garcia's fate was sealed. Morejon made it easy for the team to find him when he provided his client's home and work addresses on government forms.

Two months later, just before Thanksgiving, as Martinez Garcia was thinking about which half-priced video games he planned to buy for his children's Christmas gifts, he pulled into work early. When two ICE agents' trucks blocked his car, his heart sank.

"They asked me for my name and put me under arrest," says Martinez Garcia. Following a brief appearance in Federal Magistrate Court in Albuquerque, Martinez Garcia was sent to a solitary holding cell in Torrance County. Deportation appeared certain, and all because Morejon had placed Martinez Garcia into further jeopardy when he'd lured the family into paying him a large fee for a dream that could not be bought.

"People like Mr. Martinez Garcia often fall prey to incompetent and unscrupulous consultants," says New Mexico Immigrant Law Center Co-founder and Legal Director Megan E Jordi. After hearing about the case, Jordi (pictured at right with him) says she contacted Joel Cruz-Esparza, an assistant New Mexico attorney general.

Cruz-Esparza was not surprised to hear the sad story unfolding. "When these consultants offer the wrong advice, there are often dire consequences," says Cruz-Esparza. "We also see businesses use immigrants' status and unfamiliarity with the system to leverage unfair consumer transactions."

As a result, Cruz-Esparza says, immigrants suffer disproportionally when they fall victim to marketplace abuse; often because they are less likely to seek legal aid. He points to tax preparation services, land deals, vehicle purchases and even title-less mobile home sales as potential consumer problems for immigrants.

He also warns that in legal immigration matters, only attorneys, final-year law students and representatives from nonprofits like Adelante, Catholic Charities and New Mexico Immigrant Law Center are authorized to charge a fee for their services.

However, individual family members, other relatives, college-educated neighbors, priests or church members, Cruz-Esparza says, may be appointed by an immigrant to assist them. But they are only allowed to represent individuals on a case-by-case basis and are prohibited from charging any kind of fee.

To solve the problems presented by immigration consultants, Cruz-Esparza recommends a three-pronged approach: Strong enforcement of state and federal laws; community education programs to help make immigrants aware of the rules set up to protect them; and training additional nonprofit entities to provide qualified and trusted services at a reasonable price. "We need to protect the least powerful people in our community," says Cruz-Esparza.

And that's exactly what he and Jordi have done for the Martinez Garcia family.

After spending three months inside the ICE detention center in Estancia, Cruz-Esparza secured a deal with the US Attorney's office to reduce Martinez Garcia's felony re-entry charge to a misdemeanor in exchange for his assistance in prosecuting Morejon for the unlawful practice of immigration and nationality law.

Last October, Morejon pleaded guilty to the charge and received a deferred sentence from state District Court Judge Briana Zamora. She ordered Morejon to serve 364 days on unsupervised misdemeanor probation. Zamora also demanded he cease offering and performing any immigration consultant services to New Mexico consumers and pay restitution to Martinez Garcia and other clients.

For Martinez Garcia, the possibility of getting his money back from Morejon wasn't enough. He still needed a miracle to keep from being returned to Mexico for good.

Martinez Garcia tells SFR he was allowed to stay in the country after Jordi and her team secured him a U Visa. Ironically, that visa is reserved for those who have been certified as a crime victim. It authorizes Martinez Garcia to remain in the country with his family for at least four more years. If things go his way, he'll be able to apply for a green card in 2017.

Back on the job, and with the clock ticking, Martinez Garcia has competent legal counsel in Jordi and the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. This time, they're confident he's on the right track.

It's been a long ride, but if Martinez Garcia keeps a firm grip on his dream, he hopes US citizenship lies just over the horizon.

Dreams for Sale

Santa Fe business repeatedly violates law on immigration consulting

The New Mexico Attorney General’s office has ordered a Santa Fe businesswoman to immediately stop offering unauthorized legal consulting services to immigrants following an undercover SFR investigation this summer.

Such illegal consulting is a problem, the AG's office says, that rears its head around New Mexico about 20 times a year on average—more if you consider that many victims don't report the crime. In the past five years, at least other 18 other businesses have received cease-and-desist orders.

The order sent to Morada Latina in Santa Fe last month isn't the first time Rosario Dunning has been warned that she and her employees have been putting immigrants at risk of deportation. Two years ago, Dunning signed an agreement assuring Assistant Attorney General Joel Cruz-Esparza she would discontinue her practice of engaging clients who asked her for assistance completing complicated US Citizenship and Immigration Services forms.

To avoid prosecution, Dunning agreed to refer immigrants to qualified staffs at nonprofit entities like Catholic Charities or Adelante or directly to licensed immigration attorneys. Dunning also promised to stop advertising those services on the radio and to post signs at her 5th Street business stating she could no longer provide those services for a fee. But this summer, after SFR learned Dunning and her crew were once again charging for immigration consultation, we set up a telephone sting to check for ourselves.

SFR recruited a Spanish-speaking undercover volunteer we named "Alma" to call Dunning's bookkeeping and Spanish language translation office. Alma posed as a student seeking assistance completing a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program application and other legal advice on renewing her mother's legal permanent residency.

After a few rings, a woman named Eli Chavez answered the phone and quickly told Alma they were no longer preparing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival forms. Instead, Chavez referred her to Adelante's immigration attorney Allegra Love for assistance.

"She does the Dream Act for free," Chavez told Alma, misstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals official program name. There is no Dream Act. This is only a proposal, and only Congress can pass such an act. When the president announced an expansion of his executive order to defer prosecutions of deportation, the policy shift still did not provide residency status or a visa to eligible students. It only allowed them to secure a work permit and a social security card.

The referral was a good sign that Morada Latina was in compliance with their agreement to discontinue immigration consultations and refer them to qualified help. Yet the conversation went on.

With Love's telephone number written down, Alma told Chavez she was not only a student but was married to a US citizen.

"It's better for you to apply through your husband," Chavez recommended. "The Dream Act only gives you a two-year work permit, and you can't leave the country. With your husband you get residency."

After Chavez asked Alma again if her husband is a US citizen, she suggested, "Oh, yeah, he will get your papers fast."

Before ending the call, Alma also asked Chavez if Morada Latina would be able to help her mother renew her legal permanent residency.

"Anyone here can do it," Chavez told Alma, quoting a $90 fee.

With the telephone conversation recorded, SFR headed to the attorney general's office.

The advice Chavez offered Alma is enough to be considered as practicing law without a license, according to the assistant attorney general.

In his Aug. 22 letter to Dunning, Cruz-Esparza cited SFR's recording and again ordered Dunning and her employees to stop providing legal advice and to cease processing federal forms. With Cruz-Esparza's letter delivered, SFR stopped by Morada Latina to confront Dunning about the problem.

"I didn't open this to swindle anyone. I didn't do it to get rich. I opened it to help people," says Dunning. "Some people in the community will say I was wrong to do that, but others will know that I've helped a lot of people."

When SFR asked why she had not completed the Board of Immigration Appeals accreditation program after traveling to Dallas to attend other training provided by Catholic Charities, Dunning claimed, "It's just too much work."

"The truth is just that they come in here; they really need help. They're really desperate, so I helped them," says Dunning.

Now that she's been ordered to stop, she tells SFR she won't be offering immigrants help with their paperwork and has told employees to stop offering any advice. Instead, she says she's looking to partner with local attorneys to "provide a one-stop shop."

Luz Hilda Campos, co-founder of the New Mexico Dreamers in Action student advocacy group, understands Dunning's rationale but says, "The high risk of working with unqualified consultants outweighs the low costs."

"It's sad that we have to be cautious of people in our own community," says Campos, who recently received her own Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals permit. "They might think they know what they're doing, but there is a reason why there are these restrictions with practicing immigration law."

Campos isn't the only one upset with the so-called immigration consultants.

"It is very frustrating that we are still seeing fraud," says Campos' New Mexico Dreamers in Action colleague and University of New Mexico graduate student Juan Carlos Deoses. "This practice is hurting our community, and it needs to stop."

But getting that message to immigrants around the state can be difficult and expensive. Campos and Deoses say they've had teams set up to deliver free legal clinics and forums in Farmington, Española, Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe since June 2012.

In Santa Fe, the group has partnered with city officials and the Santa Fe Public Schools to engage immigrant students on both deferred action and access to higher education. Summer sports programs make it fun and help them to spread the word.

The Dreamers, in partnership with Love, also offer weekly legal clinics at St. Bede's Episcopal Church, 1601 S St. Francis Drive, every Friday from 1-5 pm.

For her part, Dunning says she's posted big new signs at her office notifying prospective clients she's no longer offering the service.

Even with the legitimate low cost resources available around the state, new concerns have emerged. Activists worry that scammers often advertise that they are notary publics, which can be confusing to immigrants because notarios públicos have more training and authority in Mexico than notary publics in the US. Low-hanging fruit could appear in the form of thousands of "Dreamers" who are required to renew their work permits. They also wonder what will happen to immigrants if President Barack Obama, as promised, takes action on immigration reform with an executive order after the November elections.

New Mexico Immigrant Law Center attorney Megan Jordi tells SFR she's already hearing rumors about illegal practitioners setting up shop in underserved parts of the state even before the administration announces its broad relief to immigrants.

"We need everyone to be on the lookout for those posing as immigration practitioners and to report them to Joel Cruz at the attorney general's office," says Jordi.

Even Dunning says she'll be protecting her community. Now that she's back in compliance with the law, she says Morada Latina will buy radio ads to help get the word out. But first, according to the Office of the Attorney General, Dunning must respond to the latest allegations of illegal practice of law and could end up facing fines up to $5,000 per incident in District Court.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story erroneously said Santa Fe Police Department was engaging with students. It now correctly reads Santa Fe Public Schools.

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