Fake courtrooms, sham hearings: Immigrants targeted by scams amid Trump administration’s deportation push

(NEW YORK) — Twenty-year-old Edith from Guatemala has remained in her home with her 1-year-old baby Justin for weeks after selling her only means of transportation.

“Being stuck at home, locked up inside, is very, very difficult for us,” she told ABC News.

Edith, a U.S. citizen who was raised in Guatemala and requested she only be referred to by her first name out of concern over her privacy, sold her car and spent her life savings to pay someone who she thought was an attorney to help her husband Dimas, who was arrested and placed in immigration custody in March. 

After Dimas, the undocumented breadwinner of the family, was quickly sent to a detention center in Georgia, Edith sought an immigration lawyer on social media, where a stranger recommended a supposed Florida-based attorney.

“I was scheduled for a video call, and the woman who said she was a lawyer said that to get someone out of immigration detention, a habeas corpus needed to be filed,” Edith told ABC News. 

Edith retained the woman and began communicating with her frequently. She completed documents the woman sent her, and began sending the woman payments. She even received documents that appeared to be from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that oversees immigration services.

“She began asking for money, $500, $600, $1,750, $4,000 for the bond, petition, copies [of forms],” Edith said.

But last month, when the woman was scheduled to participate in a video call for Dimas’ initial hearing before an immigration judge, she never appeared on the call. Edith’s husband later told her that the judge said that the attorney wasn’t registered in the court system.

“He said, ‘They’re scamming you,'” Edith said. “I said, ‘But why? Why me?’ I started to feel really bad and I didn’t know what to do.”

After confronting the woman she had hired, Edith realized she had been scammed out of more than $10,000 — her life savings. And with all her money gone, she was unable to pay for a legitimate lawyer to represent her husband, who last month was ordered deported by an immigration judge. 

‘A billion-dollar industry’
Edith is one of many victims across the country that law enforcement and immigration lawyers say are being targeted by bad actors seizing on the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Some scammers, according to officials, are using artificial intelligence to hold fake immigration court proceedings with scammers wearing judicial robes and law enforcement uniforms, using fake documents that appear to be from federal agencies. 

“In my experience, this is a billion-dollar industry,” said Jorge Rivera, an immigration lawyer in Florida.

Rivera told ABC News that scammers, including the woman who Edith hired, have used his credentials and his law firm’s information to target immigrants.

“[Victims] have shown up to our office and they say, ‘What happened to my case?'” he said.

ABC News found cases of sophisticated immigration scams across the country, including in New York, where five defendants pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of holding “sham immigration proceedings” including asylum interviews and court appearances.

According to the complaint, one victim ended up missing their real immigration hearing and was deported.  

“In doing so, the defendants demonstrated a complete and utter disregard for the potentially life-altering consequences that their actions inflicted on their victims — vulnerable individuals who not only lost significant funds, but also missed their actual immigration court appearances,” prosecutors said.

And last month, four people in Orlando, Florida, were charged with setting up a fake immigration law firm and extorting millions from victims. They have not yet entered formal pleas.

‘It’s heartbreaking’
Rivera said immigration scams have gotten “exponentially worse” during the second Trump administration, because more pathways for immigration relief “have closed.” 

“There’s been pauses, there’s more denials, undoubtedly, it’s more difficult to be able to resolve your immigration status,” he said. “So this is a perfect storm for the criminals.”

Rivera said that if those seeking help are “talking to a legitimate attorney and they’re talking to a fraudster, and the fraudster is giving them hope and giving them possibilities, they’re going to go with the person that’s giving them the hope.”

Rivera said he has been working with law enforcement across the country to send them information on alleged scammers, and has been reaching out to social media companies to take down fake profiles. 

In a statement to ABC News, the Department of Homeland Security said scammers are also “pretending to be ICE and USCIS to trick people into giving them money or personal information.”

The DHS said that officials will never call out of the blue, demand money, or accept payments using gift cards or crypto currency.

Scammers are also targeting immigrant advocacy groups like Catholic Charities, Kevin Brennan, Catholic Charities’ vice president, told ABC News.

“It’s really been over the past year or so that we started hearing reports of people claiming to be Catholic Charities and other organizations that provide legal services to immigrants and refugees and using social media to fraudulently offer services, express urgency, ask for money,” Brennan told ABC News. 

“It’s heartbreaking to see people who are in need and looking for help and being taken advantage of in such a terrible way by these fraudsters and criminals,” he said.

In Edith’s case, the possibility of getting legitimate legal help to try to get her husband released before he’s deported is slipping away. After an immigration judge ordered her husband deported on April 28, he is currently in ICE custody awaiting removal to Guatemala.

Edith said she will likely go to Guatemala to remain with her husband.

“It’s very ugly, and I don’t wish it on anyone else — to a person who is alone and without support,” she said. “This is not easy.” 

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