Scammers are targeting illegal immigrants in the U.S.

In Orange County, Florida, high-dollar fraud cases often involve questionable cryptocurrency and real estate transactions or tax evasion. But in late April, the Sheriff announced something strange. The state Attorney General’s Office has charged a man, his wife and two others with running a fake immigration law firm out of a boarded-up storefront in Orlando. Under the name “Legacy Imigra,” they allegedly charged hundreds of migrants, primarily Brazilians, for bogus services in at least four states and submitted fraudulent asylum applications on their behalf while holding their genuine documents for ransom. The indictment alleges that the four defrauded aspiring Americans of more than $20 million.

Federal prosecutors in New York are pursuing a more complex scheme. They said a group of Colombian defendants not only impersonated lawyers to extort clients, but also wore judge robes and police uniforms, held sham court hearings via video calls and issued false documents bearing government seals. They even convince “clients” to skip actual court hearings, making them more vulnerable to deportation.

Both cases exposed the booming business conditions in the United States under Donald Trump. As governments narrow legal pathways to citizenship and ramp up deportations, more and more immigrants are desperate for legal protection. Scammers are making money.

The number of immigrants arrested in the United States nearly tripled last year, but only 42% of immigrants in deportation proceedings have lawyers. Because immigration cases are civil, defendants have no constitutional rights. The consequences of facing the government alone are severe, especially since most of those who stand trial before a judge do not speak English. An analysis of 1.2 million cases by the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group, found that immigrants facing deportation are at least three times more likely to win if they have a lawyer. For detainees, the odds increase tenfold.

For scammers, the high demand and desperation of immigrants has proven irresistible, an opportunity to expand on a model that has worked for them for years. Spanish-speaking criminals have long targeted Spanish-speaking criminals, confusing “notarios,” which refers to professional lawyers in many Latin American countries, with “notaries,” legal witnesses who can be certified in the U.S. with an online application and basic background checks. For years, Los Angeles “notaries” have been soliciting clients outside courthouses and delivering “mobile services” in vans through immigrant neighborhoods, mostly without repercussions. But now more and more people are falling for the scam, said Gina Amato of California Public Counsel. “Here they are selling dreams when the stakes are so high.”

What began as a network of local scams has now become a more sophisticated network of online scams. Scammers use Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp to impersonate specific immigration attorneys and nonprofits that are known to do good work. About one-third of Catholic Charities chapters were impersonated. “It’s exploded in the past year,” explained Consuelo Kwee of the Diocese of Raleigh. “I get five to 10 calls a day from people being scammed.” Recently, a man asked her why, after paying $50,000 to the nonprofit and waiting a year, his family’s documents still hadn’t arrived in the mail. “When I told him he was not one of our clients, he started crying,” she said.

Careful observers can often spot scammers: fraudsters promise results, and real lawyers are less naive. But artificial intelligence is erasing this distinction. With just a minute of real footage, scammers can create a deepfake. Miami immigration attorney Ángel Leal found that the video incorrectly depicted him handing documents to tearful family members waving American flags and advising a handcuffed man in custody. Since March, with the help of some anti-piracy experts, he has removed more than 6,400 fake profiles bearing his name. Removing content isn’t always easy. Baltimore attorney Jared Jaskot, who represents teenagers who received green cards because of abuse, asked TikTok to remove viral clone accounts that were attracting customers by sharing his content. The platform responded by saying it found “no violations” of its “Community Guidelines.”

Arrests in Florida and New York could deter some startup scammers from scaling up. But the federal government has never done much to combat “notary” fraud. Investigative news outlet ProPublica found that the number of immigration fraud complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has doubled since the president returned to office. However, the FTC’s webpage on immigration scams has not been updated since Joe Biden left. For now, scammers appear to have found an ideal target: immigrants who are eager to help, but who want to remain under the radar, which means they rarely report when they are scammed. “It’s a miserable game of whack-a-mole” for those trying to help, said Charity Anastasio of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, an industry group. “And it’s only going to get worse.”