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Immigration
Empty Promises
Self-declared immigration consultants sometimes cross the line into the unlicensed, incompetent practice of law, often leading to deportations
January 13, 2003
By Tony Doris
Fearing for her life after guerrillas killed her husband, Gladys Herrera Franco left her native Colombia and entered the United States in October 1999 on a tourist visa. Eleven months after arriving in the Miami area, she went to Gabriel Bonet for help in applying for asylum.
Bonet, who runs a business in western Miami-Dade County offering what he says is translation help for immigrants, charged her $1,200 for assistance. Problem is, he didn’t file her application until April 2001, after Herrera Franco’s one-year deadline for applying for asylum had passed. In June 2001, the Immigration and Naturalization Service rejected her application because it was late.
So she filed a complaint with the Florida Bar unlicensed practice of law office in Miami. “Mr. Bonet is a notary public posing as an attorney,” she said in her complaint. Following an investigation by the Bar, the Florida Supreme Court in October permanently enjoined Bonet from practicing law without a license in Florida.
While Herrera Franco, 60, who lives in Sunrise, got $1,000 back from Bonet as a result of the Bar’s action, that doesn’t help her with her biggest problem. If she fails to get the INS decision overturned, she will be sent back to civil war-torn Colombia. She couldn’t be reached for comment.
With the mounting instability in Latin America and Haiti, more people are arriving illegally and quasi-legally in South Florida. But facing an intense crackdown on immigration by the U.S. government in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many new arrivals are desperately turning to unlicensed immigration practitioners who promise them help in legalizing their status.
Many of the practitioners provide much needed help and know their legal limitations. “There’s a market for us, for the simple and good reason that there’s not enough Haitian lawyers to begin with,” said Lucie Tondreau, who said she attends training sessions that the INS offers for community-based organizations. “My limitations are to help people fill out forms, help them make a call to Texas, to the National Visa Center, to know what the status of their case is.”
She also translates documents such as birth and divorce certificates from French or Creole to English, for $20 to $30 a page. “For me, it’s not a competition between the lawyers and consultants; it’s a matter of providing a service that will help families be reunited, the easiest, least painful and least expensive way possible,” Tondreau said. “We’re talking about a community where some are making the minimum wage or less. They cannot afford $1,000, or $3,000 to have their families here.”
But many others cross the line.
These practitioners advertise their services with signs on storefronts, by word of mouth and through fliers handed out on the sidewalk. Sometimes working in the same offices with tax advisers, passport photo shops and money-changing operations, these immigration counselors offer legal advice under the guise of helping fill out Immigration and Naturalization Service applications for asylum, citizenship, work permits and other official documents.
While these practitioners tout their services as cheaper than those of immigration lawyers, the result can be tragically costly for the immigrants. At least partly due to bad advice, some wind up detained and deported.
Immigration lawyers and Florida Bar officials say these unlicensed practitioners often provide incompetent assistance or engage in fraud. “Huge numbers of people are being taken to the cleaners by totally incompetent, so-called immigration consultants,” said Timothy J. Murphy, a partner at Shutts & Bowen in Miami who serves as president of the South Florida chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
In response, the Bar has been trying to shut down practitioners without law licenses. But Bar officials and Murphy’s group said the authorities can’t keep up with the number of immigration consultants, notaries public and other nonlawyer practitioners who dispense legal advice about complex immigration matters best left to lawyers experienced in the field.
Cheaper but illegal
Under Florida law, all that nonlawyers are allowed to do for those seeking help with immigration matters is to translate for them and help them fill out forms. These practitioners claim that they provide such services for far lower rates than do attorneys — hundreds of dollars rather than the thousands charged by attorneys.
Generalizations are tricky, though. Many nonlawyer consultants charge more than lawyers, said North Miami Beach solo lawyer Antoine Isma. By contrast, legitimate practitioners like his friend Tondreau make his job easier. “It saves me the time of sitting down and filling out the application. When they’re ready to go to court, it’s much easier for me.”
There’s no question that many with dire immigration problems can’t afford to hire a lawyer.
Ninety percent of INS detainees processed at the three federal immigration courts in Florida, in Miami, Bradenton and Orlando, face the judge without counsel, according to the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advisory Center. At the appellate level, 2,400 of the 4,300 detainee cases nationally in 1999 went without representation, according to the federal Board of Immigration Appeals.
But unlicensed practitioners are legally permitted to advise people on the law only in “very, very, very limited” circumstances, said Lori Holcomb, counsel for the Bar’s Unlicensed Practice of Law Committee in Tallahassee. One example would be advising a relative for free.
Many unlicensed practitioners, however, go much further — providing legal advice on asylum claims, work permit filings, visa extensions and citizenship applications, according to Bar officials. In addition, some practitioners deceive customers about the limited extent of their training and legal authority and give inaccurate advice. The consequences often are disastrous for immigrants, who seldom are willing to come forward to file complaints for fear of being apprehended and deported.
As a result, Bar officials are drafting a bill for the upcoming session of the Legislature that would require nonlawyer immigration advisers to post bonds. The requirement would prevent many from setting up shop and would provide a pool of restitution money for victims of fraud, Murphy said.
‘Opportunity crime’
Unlicensed immigration counselors are often immigrants who solicit business from their own ethnic community or language group. In North Miami Beach, which has a large population of Haitian immigrants, Police Detective Denise Love has successfully brought grand theft charges against immigration consultants.
“It’s an opportunity crime for these so-called paralegals or legal representatives,” Love said. “They look at it and go, ‘I’m Colombian, these immigrants are Colombian, I’ll go in and say ‘I’ll help you out.’ ”
Notaries public often advertise their services as immigration counselors. One reason they succeed in attracting customers is that in Latin America, the Caribbean and many other parts of the world, a notary is highly trained and respected professional who does many of the same things lawyers do, said Myriam Mezadieu, chief administrator for Catholic Charities Legal Services in Miami.
Of course, U.S. notaries public are quite different. “Here a notary public is somebody who can breathe and has not been convicted of a felony,” Murphy quipped.
Mezadieu’s agency works closely with eight lawyers, who charge about $200 to help with an asylum application, based on a sliding fee scale. But many Haitians instead go to notaries public and immigration consultants, she said.
Recently, she recalled, one man turned down the agency’s help and instead paid $1,500 to a notary public for help, figuring that the charity’s low fee meant he probably wouldn’t get good service. The man eventually ended up back at her agency, after realizing he had just wasted his $1,500 on bad advice.
But too often, Mezdieu said, by the time they turn to her agency, it’s too late for help. One unlicensed consultant recently told a man that he didn’t need to bother with the asylum application right away and offered to help him get a “green card” work permit instead. It cost the man a chance at asylum. “We have a lot of cases like that,” she said.
Most abuses go unreported because the victims are afraid of deportation if they contact the authorities. Miami Beach immigration lawyer Karyn J. Begin recently worked with three members of a Bahamian family who she said were ripped off by an unscrupulous immigration consultant.
The Bahamians were in the United States illegally. They went to the consultant’s office in Miami Beach, seeking help in applying for “amnesty” from the INS and legal immigration status. The consultant asked for $4,000 from each person and told them to come back in a week when he’d have the completed paperwork ready.
Unknown to them, she said, no such amnesty program has been offered by the INS since 1986. When they returned the following week, the office was closed, and their $12,000 was gone.
Now the three people are hoping Begin will be able to help them, though there’s not much any lawyer can do for them at this point. The family refuses to file criminal charges or a Bar complaint against the vanished consultant, said Begin, a solo practitioner. “Is a Bahamian out of status going to file something anywhere?” she asked. “No. They’re trapped.”
Still, the Florida Bar has recorded an increasing number of complaints about unlicensed practitioners, which officials believe reflects a trend.
Holcomb said 55 unlicensed practice of law cases were opened during the Bar’s 1999-2000 fiscal year, 83 were opened in 2000-2001, 107 in 2001-2002, and, halfway through the current fiscal year, 52 have been opened. The Bar investigates the cases out of its offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tallahassee, Orlando and Tampa. Bar officials say the South Florida offices are by far the busiest.
‘I don’t give legal advice’
After five prior complaints against him and a previous investigation by the Florida Bar, Gabriel Bonet in October 2001 signed under oath a cease and desist affidavit. In the affidavit he acknowledged that it would be illegal for him to hold himself out as an attorney, render legal advice or even obtain information verbally from another person to complete INS forms.
But then came two more complaints and investigations; last October the Supreme Court handed down its permanent injunction in the Herrera Franco case against his continuing to practice immigration law.
If he violates that injunction, he could face contempt of court charges and criminal charges for unlicensed practice of law. Such charges could result in fines or jail time, particularly if they are combined with related criminal charges, such as grand theft or fraud.
For now, Bonet, a native of Puerto Rico who is part Colombian, remains in business as a Spanish translator, mainly for Colombian immigrants. His business, Excalibur Translations, is located at 1414 NW 107th Ave., in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. “We translate here. I don’t give legal advice,” he said. “I tell people to see one or two attorneys before coming to me.”
Bonet said he gives customers a Spanish-language version of the INS asylum application form and translates their answers into English. He said he simply repeats to them the instructions written on the official INS form, which is available only in English on the INS Internet site. That site offers links to free translation services.
The forms and instructions are not complicated and don’t take a lawyer to figure out, Bonet said. He stressed that he charges much less than lawyers for translating and filling out the forms. Several years ago, he said, it cost his wife, who is from Colombia, $13,000 in attorney fees to gain U.S. citizenship. By contrast, he said, he charges $25 a page to translate the few pages of each application.
He estimates that more than half of his clients who have been in the country for less than one year succeed in winning asylum with his help. Those who’ve been here for more than a year have a tougher standard to meet; only about 10 percent are granted asylum, he said.
But Murphy rejects the idea that nonlawyers can be effective in most cases. While there are some simple cases — for instance, an American citizen’s immigrant spouse who entered the United States legally and is seeking citizenship — most of the people going to unlicensed practitioners do not have simple cases, he said.
“Simply filling out the forms is not providing the service these people need,” he said. “And even in the simple cases, it’s very easy to make a mistake and get these people in trouble, if you don’t know the right questions to ask regarding legal entry, possible violations of law before or after entry, and so on.”
If an unlicensed person is merely helping people fill out forms, “we don’t object to that,” Murphy said. “What we object to is these people putting big signs out front, calling themselves immigration ‘consultants.’ Neither we nor anybody else believes they’re just filling out forms.”
‘Congratulations! You’re a citizen’
Florida Bar investigations generally take several months to run their course, from the filing of a complaint to its adjudication by the Florida Supreme Court, if it gets that far.
Jacquelyn Needelman serves as counsel in the Bar’s unlicensed practice of law, or UPL, office in Miami, which investigates complaints from Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. After a complaint comes in, she reviews it, requests a response from the accused, then might assign a part-time staff investigator to gather more information. Ultimately a case with merit would go to one of the 10 members of the Bar’s UPL committee in Miami to investigate. They put together cases that could wind up before the Supreme Court.
Some of the cases are tragicomedies. In one case under investigation by the Florida Bar, an illegal immigrant met an unlicensed consultant at a Tampa diner, handing the consultant $2,000 to help obtain U.S. citizenship. While the prospective immigrant waited in the diner, which was located near a federal government office building, the consultant stepped out, then returned a short time later and told him, “Congratulations! You’re a U.S. citizen.”
The immigrant promptly walked over to the Social Security office, introduced himself as a new citizen and asked for a Social Security card. He was arrested and now faces deportation, though he has a wife and child in the United States, said Holcomb, who declined to identify the victim.
For an unlicensed immigration adviser to be hit with a permanent cease and desist injunction from the Supreme Court is no small matter, Needelman said. People who ignore the injunction could be cited for criminal contempt and face criminal charges that lead to jail time.
Unlicensed practice of law is itself a criminal misdemeanor, if law enforcement authorities choose to pursue it, she said. But related charges such as grand theft or fraud can be added, making the consequences more severe. In reality, few end up in jail.
In 1999, a federal jury in Utah convicted Leonardo Ramon Caballero and his wife, Flor Caballero, formerly of Miami Lakes, on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and mail fraud. The couple’s immigration assistance operation included Miami offices. Prosecutors put together the case with the help of the Florida Bar’s UPL office in Miami. They received stiff prison terms and restitution penalties, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Salt Lake City.
But most investigations are civil. North Miami Beach immigration lawyer Karin Gerardin said she found out that her employee Eric. R. Allen was giving her clients legal advice while she wasn’t in the office and that he told them he was a lawyer. He went to her clients’ workplaces or met them in parking lots to ask them for payment. So she fired him.
Gerardin said she first knew something was amiss when a woman called to inquire about the status of her case and neither Gerardin nor her secretary knew who the woman was. He’d charged the woman $500 to extend her tourist visa — but mailed the form to the wrong place, Gerardin alleged. “We immediately corrected it.”
That woman didn’t file a complaint. But last July, another of Allen’s clients did file a complaint, as did Gerardin.
In September, the Supreme Court entered a permanent injunction against Allen, a Miami Lakes resident, forbidding him to hold himself out as a lawyer. Gerardin also said she filed a criminal complaint with the North Miami Beach Police Department. That pending complaint alleges grand theft and fraud.
According to Gerardin, Allen continues to engage in the unlicensed practice of immigration law, and she plans to present clients of his who will testify to this. “He’s still out there doing it,” Gerardin said. “He is unstoppable.”
Allen did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Stopping fly-by-night
operators
Given the serious consequences of the unlicensed activity and the reluctance of victims to report violators, the immigration bar has been seeking state legislative solutions, said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta attorney who is chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s consumer protection committee.
For example, in Georgia, many of the offenders have been notaries public. To discourage them from offering immigration counseling, Georgia enacted a law in July, saying that any notary public who sells immigration services can lose the right to be a notary public.
Notaries are major offenders in Florida as well, Murphy said. But he doubts that a law similar to Georgia’s would have much impact in South Florida. “These people could care less about the threat,” he said.
Instead, Murphy’s group is proposing a bill with a definition of immigration practice that would cover notaries and anyone else who is not a licensed attorney. It would require nonlawyers offering immigration services to post a bond in the range of $25,000 to $50,000.
That would create a dedicated pool of money from which victims of bogus practitioners could seek restitution if a practitioner failed to complete work on the person’s case. The financial hurdle also would discourage many fly-by-night operators from getting into the immigration consulting business in the first place, he added.
Murphy contended that legislative action is required because decades of effort by the Florida Bar to crack down on bogus immigration counselors have failed. “If you catch one, there’s 20 more out there,” he said. “It’s putting a finger in the hole in the dike.”
But in an interview, Gabriel Bonet said that the UPL enforcement efforts by bar groups are simply an effort to eliminate competition for their attorney members.
Bonet claimed he’s had about 1,000 customers since he opened his business eight years ago. He attributed the complaints against him to a handful of disgruntled customers who lost their INS cases. Five or six complaints out of 1,000 customers, he said, isn’t a bad record.
Now, he said, he requires clients to sign a form in advance to acknowledge that he told them he is not an attorney. “It’s a shame, because attorneys want to hurt me here in Miami,” Bonet complained. “They want to chop my head.”
Tony Doris can be reached at tdoris@floridabiz.com or at (305) 347-6657.
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