Wall Street Journal
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien
July 13, 2015
When
authorities arrested a 69-year-old Brooklyn man last month for
allegedly selling phony legal assistance to immigrants, they charged him
under a new state statue aimed
at protecting immigrants from fraud.
The
case against Howard Seidler, who also faces counts of forgery, grand
larceny and practicing law without a license, highlights the mounting
concern among New York officials
about schemes targeting immigrants who are seeking assistance with
citizenship, asylum, work papers and more.
Mr. Seidler has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody at Rikers Island. His lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
City prosecutors have redoubled efforts in the past few years to reach immigrant communities.
Special
immigrant fraud units have aligned with nonprofits and federal
authorities, placed alerts in consulates and set up anonymous hotlines
for reporting fraud. In April,
the state attorney general and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced a task force to investigate illegal immigration-service
providers.
But
officials and immigrant advocacy groups said state law still doesn’t do
enough to combat fraud targeting immigrants, which typically involves
small amounts of money
and often results in misdemeanor or low-level felony charges. They want
the Legislature to approve stiffer charges for these crimes.
Mr.
Seidler’s case, brought by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office,
marked the first charges under the state’s Immigrant Assistance Service
Enforcement Act, which
took effect in February. Mr. Seidler was arrested after he accepted
more than $3,000 from an undercover detective and allegedly returned a
forged Social Security card, according to prosecutors.
Last
year, as part of a settlement with the state attorney general’s office,
two immigrant services organizations operating in New York City agreed
to pay $2.2 million
in restitution to thousands of clients who the attorney general’s
office alleged were defrauded by the organizations.
Figures
on fraud targeting immigrants, many of whom are in the country
illegally, are hard to come by, in part, because so much goes
unreported, officials said. The state’s
New Americans Campaign cites Federal Trade Commission figures showing
100 complaints about immigration-services fraud were made in New York
state in 2013.
Illegal
immigrants and temporary residents are particularly vulnerable,
officials say, because they are unlikely to know their rights, may not
speak English and are often
afraid to contact law enforcement. The consequences go beyond monetary
losses: Filing fraudulent claims for asylum or lying, even unknowingly,
on immigration forms can render applicants ineligible for federal
benefits in the future.
“Obviously,
not being legal in this country makes the bad guys target you that much
more, knowing you can’t go forward,” said Greg Pavlides, chief of the
Queens district
attorney’s economic crimes bureau.
Mr.
Pavlides said his office prosecutes five to 10 immigration assistance
fraud cases annually, along with more scams unrelated to legal status
that often affect immigrants
disproportionately.
These
scams include phony employment agencies that charge would-be applicants
for uniforms and background checks for nonexistent jobs, travel agents
that sell incomplete
airline tickets, and online ads that demand down payments for phantom
apartments.
Some
scams are specific to ethnic communities. In “Chinese blessing” scams,
offenders target older Chinese women, promising to cleanse them of evil
spirits while making
off with their cash and jewelry. “Notario” fraud is prevalent in Latino
communities, with public notaries offering legal services they aren’t
licensed to provide.
Rosemary
Yu, who runs the Manhattan district attorney’s immigrant affairs unit,
said the people who commit these crimes employ a “unique cultural hook
that becomes a unique
cultural scam.”
In
2013, Ms. Yu helped bring charges against Martin Mannert, a
self-described immigration consultant who pleaded guilty to a scheme in
which he charged immigrants seeking
legal status about $10,000 apiece for forged documents that he never
filed. Mr. Mannert avoided jail but paid $180,000 in restitution to
about 20 people.
Many
of Mr. Mannert’s victims were undocumented Polish immigrants who came
forward with the support of Father Brian Jordan, a priest who provides
free counseling services
for immigrants. His role, he said, is “to work with the victims who are
afraid to come forward.”
“Most of these people are still living in the shadows,” Mr. Jordan said.
One
32-year-old Polish man, who entered the U.S. illegally more than a
decade ago, said he paid Mr. Mannert $9,500 to secure his legal status.
The man, who declined to
give his name, said he trusted Mr. Mannert in part because his
secretary was Polish. “We believed it because she told us,” he said.
The man, who owns a construction business, expects to be deported later this year.
One
frustration for immigrant advocacy groups is that prosecutors have
tended to want more than one victim before bringing a case. And
prosecutors take issue with New
York’s white-collar crime laws, which don’t allow larceny charges to be
combined to create stiffer penalties.
For
example, collecting $600 fees from 100 different people would result in
multiple counts of petit larceny, a misdemeanor, rather than a combined
felony grand larceny
charge.
“Our hands are tied,” said Maritza Mejia-Ming, counsel to the Brooklyn district attorney.
Ms.
Mejia-Ming said the Brooklyn district attorney’s office was prosecuting
about 15 immigrant-fraud cases at any given time, a number she expected
to grow with the new
law.
Officials
said they are pleased the new immigrant-services statute applies felony
charges and steeper fines to businesses that don’t disclose that they
aren’t authorized
to practice immigration law.
“It
is a good tool to have,” Ms. Yu said of the new law. “Especially in
front of a jury, they take it a little more seriously when they see that
it’s actually a crime.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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