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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    Immigrants bilked in scam

    http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/04/Pasco ... _in_.shtml

    Immigrants bilked in scam
    Some 2,550 illegal immigrants exploit a loophole to get drivers' licenses, but pay high prices for them.

    By JOSE CARDENAS
    Published October 4, 2006

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Two years ago, authorities say, word spread that even undocumented immigrants could get a Florida driver's license in just two steps.

    First, they had to file an application with federal immigration officials for a work permit.

    Even if they weren't eligible for a permit - and thousands weren't - the federal government still sent them a letter known as a "Notice of Action" to acknowledge their application.

    Then they took that letter to the motor vehicle bureau, which accepted it as proof that they were legitimately in the process of receiving legal status and issued a driver's license.

    After the motor vehicles bureau discovered that 2,550 immigrants statewide used this technique to get licenses improperly, it stopped accepting the letters last fall, but the matter is not closed.

    Many of the immigrants had help from business people who charged a fee to file those work permit applications, authorities say.

    This summer, the Florida Bar closed five immigrants' complaints against a Clearwater business woman, Maria Escurra. The immigrants said they paid Escurra, 33, to help them file work permit applications more than two years ago.

    The immigrants who filed complaints against Escurra are Saturmino Cathi Bolteada and Alejandro Nolasco of Clearwater; Guadalupe Vazquez-Rojas and Victor Villalva-Paez of Tampa; and Idelfonso Moyao of Orlando.

    None could be reached Times, but they outlined their complaints in letters to the Bar.

    "I paid her 300 dollars plus 120 (dollars in a) money order," Alejandro Nolasco of Clearwater wrote. "My friends and I are very worried now because we went to a lawyer for help and he had told us that this was a frivolous application and that is against the law."

    Escurra's attorneys told the Bar that the complaints were fabricated and "prepared at the direction of certain individuals who are seeking to ruin Ms. Escurra's personal and business reputation."

    Moreover, they submitted a statement from Nolasco contradicting his original complaint and saying he never applied for immigration benefits through Escurra.

    Escurra, who lives in New Port Richey and operates Combs United Underwriters on Harn Boulevard in Clearwater, declined through her attorney to be interviewed for this story.

    Escurra also refused to sign an affidavit sent to her from the Bar saying she would cease and desist from the unlicensed practice of law.

    In response, the Bar wrote her that if it hears that she "is continuing to engage in the unlicensed practice of law, this matter will be reopened and may result in litigation."

    Cases like Escurra's have their roots in a 2002 law meant to grant licenses to legal visitors to the United States.

    Some immigrant advocates are still angry that some business people charged undocumented immigrants hundreds of dollars to submit a work permit application to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

    "They ripped off (undocumented immigrants) and put them in harm's way," Sarasota lawyer Mariano Va said.

    Before the loophole was closed last year, Va said, he advertised in Spanish-language newspapers looking for immigrants who would file complaints. No one stepped up.

    "They are illegal," Va said. "Anytime you tell them to make a declaration they are really hesitant. (They think) something is going to happen to them."

    No one knows how many lawyers or businesspeople helped immigrants with the paperwork, officials say. But in Tampa Bay, Escarra was not the only person to be scrutinized by the Bar.

    Earlier this year, Jorge Riquelme - a competitor of Escurra's who ran a Tampa Bay Driving School branch in Clearwater - signed a cease-and-desist affidavit in connection to similar complaints filed against him.

    "I'm not an immigration lawyer. I don't know whether they are legal or not," Riquelme said in an interview a few months ago. "If the person insists, that's their problem."

    If there is ever a legalization program like the one the U.S. Senate proposed this year, other advocates say, immigrants who filed the work-permit applications could lose out because they could now have a record of fraud with immigration services.

    "I'm going to have a thousand people sitting in my office saying, 'But I'm a person of good character,' " said Tampa immigration attorney Neil Lewis, who said he reported to the Bar non-attorneys who were filing the work permit applications.

    Chris Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services said there is no way to predict whether immigrants who applied for the work permits would be harmed if a legalization program is instituted. The details in a specific program once passed would likely dictate the answer.

    The fraud had roots in a 2002 change in Florida statutes, said T.N. Prakash, chief of the driver improvement and financial responsibility bureaus for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

    That law allowed legitimate nonimmigrants, such as students, to present immigration paperwork showing that they were in the process of extending visas to receive drivers' licenses. But some lawyers and businesspeople got the idea to file work permit applications for undocumented immigrants.

    "The receipt was a legitimate receipt," Prakash said. "What was fraud is that they knew they were not entitled" to the immigration benefits.

    In 2005, Florida officials got a call from Department of Homeland Security, which had rejected 23,700 applications for work permits from this state, an excessive number of rejections, Prakash said.

    The department canceled the 2,550 licenses that had been issued and stopped accepting the notice of action letters in connection with work permit applications.

    "It was a small number of unscrupulous lawyers who were charging them $250," Prakash said.

    Though the department no longer accepts notice of action letters without additional proof of legal status, Prakash said undocumented immigrants still bring notice of action letters they received by applying fraudulently for other immigration benefits.

    Lately, he said, the department has been getting such letters from a few Brazilians who have applied for permanent residency even though they are in the country illegally and won't receive the benefit.

    "They come in waves," Prakash said.

    In Clearwater, Escurra has had contentious relationships with Latino community leaders who believe she helped immigrants file work permits and other businesses who compete with her for the immigrant market.

    Robin Gomez, a Clearwater city auditor and liaison with the Latino community, said he kept a file as he and a police officer tried to answer the questions from immigrants who wondered whether filing for the work permit was legal.

    Gomez said the larger issue with regard to the Clearwater businesses that cater to Mexican immigrants by helping to file taxes or provide forms is the potential for fraud or abuse because the immigrants don't speak English.

    For one, Gomez said, immigrants who are not accustomed to having access to free social services in their countries sometimes don't think twice about paying hundreds of dollars for services that can be found free or cheaply elsewhere.

    "They say, 'They speak Spanish. It will cost me $50, a $100.' A lot of people see this as reasonable," said Gomez, who advocates immigrants learning English. "A lot of these issues are primarily because they don't understand English."

    Jose Cardenas can be reached at jcardenas@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4224.
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Senior Member swatchick's Avatar
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    If the problem is due to the fact that they don't speak English than maybe they should learn. It just goes to prove that their own people will scam them and they have to be careful who they trust. This gives them more reason to learn English and stop looking for free handouts!
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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