Thread: Green Cards, Belief and Betrayal at a Storefront Church

June 17, 2009
Green Cards, Belief and Betrayal at a Storefront Church
By KIRK SEMPLE
Word of the deal spread swiftly among Ecuadorean immigrants, along a robust grapevine from New York City out to Long Island and into Westchester County. In Peekskill, N.Y., a gas station worker named Henry León heard about it through a friend of his wife’s: The pastors of a storefront Pentecostal church in Corona, Queens, had the inside track on a special allotment of green cards the government had earmarked for church congregations.

Mr. León and his wife made the two-hour trip by train and subway to Corona to meet with one of the two pastors, Gregorio Gonzalez. He told them that all they had to do was to fill out a form and provide $8,000 each in cash and some personal identification documents, Mr. León recalled. The green cards would be ready in a month.

It seemed too good to be true. And it was, according to prosecutors in the Queens district attorney’s office.

Mr. León and his wife are among at least 120 illegal immigrants in the New York region, most of them Ecuadoreans, who the authorities say were defrauded out of a total of nearly $1 million by Mr. Gonzalez, 56, and two accomplices who were arrested in March and April. The authorities say it was one of the region’s largest cases of immigration fraud in recent years.

Mr. León, 26, a Roman Catholic, still finds it hard to believe that a man of the cloth would lie to them. “For someone who talks so much about God,â€

I can hardly see the monitor, I am crying so hard---NOT!!!

I am wondering....if these scammers had been white citizens, would this qualify as a "hate crime".
Much of the injustice suffered by these people is due to their illegal status, and misplaced trust.

How the heck do they come up with sssoooo much cash? Is it because they do not pay income or unemployment taxes?