Some immigrants seeking Austin firm's help see hope turn to despair


Updated: 12:10 a.m. Monday, June 20, 2011

Published: 12:05 a.m. Monday, June 20, 2011


Jay Janner

U.S. citizen Eda Lara – with children Unika Fernandez, 3, left, and Hoiciar Fernandez, 2 – paid Cristo Vive to help her husband but says the firm didn't deliver. The firm's founder disputes her claims.

Jay Janner /AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Enlarge Photo Jorge Sanchez, executive director of Cristo Vive para Inmigrantes, says that his Northeast Austin nonprofit has acted within the law but that local attorneys fearing competition are trying to drive him out of business.

After fleeing their native Venezuela in 2000 because of death threats from the newly installed regime of Hugo Chávez, Sara Salazar and her husband — she was a lawyer and he a government official — arrived in Austin with tourist visas and hastily packed suitcases. Hoping to get help for their asylum case, they found an advertisement for Cristo Vive para Inmigrantes (Christ Lives for Immigrants) in Northeast Austin.

But Salazar said that Jorge Sanchez, the firm's founder , told them they didn't qualify for asylum. They ended up living here illegally for four years — he worked in a pizzeria while she cleaned houses and sold homemade pastries — before seeking advice at the University of Texas School of Law immigration clinic.

There, co-director and clinical professor Barbara Hines told her that Cristo Vive had made a life-altering mistake — she and her husband indeed would have qualified for asylum had they applied within the one-year window.

"I couldn't believe it," Salazar said. Sanchez "is so friendly; he speaks so well. The people believe in him. We trusted him because we thought he was a lawyer."

But Sanchez was not a lawyer, nor had Cristo Vive received the required recognition from the federal government to represent immigrants in court. In fact, for two decades, the Texas Supreme Court's Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee has tried to prevent Cristo Vive from providing legal help to immigrants, a saga that Cristo Vive's critics say shows the limits of the legal tools to stop unlicensed immigration consulting.

For his part, Sanchez says he is the victim of a war against him by local attorneys who are threatened by Cristo Vive's success in attracting clients. He estimates that his firm has helped thousands since opening in 1987.

"We have thousands of people that could attest that we have done nothing but good work and they are today Lawful Permanent Residents," Sanchez wrote in an email.

Sanchez said he acted only as a paralegal under the oversight of an attorney and insisted that Cristo Vive refers asylum cases to attorneys specializing in that field. He also denied that Cristo Vive advised any clients not to pursue asylum.

The federal government spells out specific rules for who can represent immigrants before federal agencies: licensed attorneys and federally recognized agencies and their accredited representatives.

The reason for the strict rules, attorneys say, is that incorrect applications or petitions can have devastating results, ruining legitimate cases for residency and sometimes resulting in deportation.

"When you get something wrong, you're really hurting someone in this," said Terri English, an accredited immigration representative and director with the nonprofit Immigration Counseling and Outreach Services. "You don't want to make a mistake. It can be seriously harmful."

The Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, made up of volunteer attorneys appointed by the Supreme Court, has pursued Cristo Vive in court since shortly after Cristo Vive's founding in 1987. The committee argues that despite a court order, the agency and its founder continued to provide consultations and legal help to immigrants in the Austin area.

The enigmatic Sanchez, a self-described political conservative who says his religious convictions pushed him to serve immigrants, has doggedly fought the charges while operating out of an office complex on Manor Road. He said that because of the court case, Cristo Vive is no longer accepting new clients, but it provides some nonlegal services, such as help with citizenship tests.

But over time, complaints against the firm have mounted.

The Mexican consul general in Austin, Rosalba Ojeda, said the consulate receives regular complaints about Cristo Vive from former clients — about one complaint per month.

"Over the years, it's been too many." Ojeda said. "It's the same sad story."

Ojeda even objects to the name of the organization, which is a nonprofit corporation. Immigrants "are accustomed to their church, their faith," she said. The name "is very appealing for immigrants and particularly deceptive."

Immigration attorneys and immigrant-serving nonprofits in Austin say they have helped dozens of former Cristo Vive clients who have received bad advice or incompetent legal help. David Walding, the director of the Bernardo Kohler Center, a federally recognized nonprofit serving immigrants, said complaints against Cristo Vive aren't driven by fears of competition.

"There is no lack of cases or clients," he said. "I would be thrilled if there were a dozen more nonprofits working on these cases."

The legal odessey surrounding Cristo Vive might be nearing an end. In April, Travis County District Judge Amy Meachum held Cristo Vive in contempt of court for violating a 1995 consent decree and permanent injunction against providing legal services to immigrants.

Meachum found "clear and convincing evidence" that Sanchez acted as an attorney for Cristo Vive in filing papers on an application for permanent residency on behalf of a local family.

Meachum fined Cristo Vive $400 and ordered it to pay court costs. She did not order jail time, as allowed under the law, or rule on the disposition of Cristo Vive's current client roster.

'The frustration, the fear'

Officials and attorneys warn that the problem of unlicensed or fraudulent immigration consultants — whose activities range from offering unlicensed but well-meaning advice to robbing immigrants desperate to legalize their immigration status — has spread throughout immigrant communities in Austin and the nation.

Many take advantage of the confusion between a notario publico, which in Latin America can refer to an attorney, and a notary public, which in the U.S. refers to someone who is only able to certify certain documents.

Last week, an array of federal and state agencies announced that they will begin confronting fraudulent immigration consultants with more vigor. The effort entails educating immigrant communities on how to avoid fraudsters and increasing the number of legitimate, accredited organizations that can provide such services, as well as additional enforcement from the Department of Justice.

And after what amounted to a three-year lull, the Texas attorney general's office has pursued 12 enforcement actions against immigration consulting scams in the past year.

And while some immigrants simply lose money, others lose much more. For Salazar, the years of living illegally took a toll that is hard for her to explain.

"No one can imagine the frustration, the fear," she said.

But after going to the UT immigration law clinic, Salazar eventually won her asylum case, and later residency, when her attorney argued that Cristo Vive provided ineffective advice.

Paul Parsons, a local immigration attorney and longtime critic of Cristo Vive, said undocumented immigrants are often afraid to complain publicly.

"The common refrain is 'Please, just help me get my papers. I don't want to make waves about money lost, opportunities lost,'" he said.

At the Mexican consulate, it's said that being undocumented is like having cancer: Immigrants will keep looking until they find a doctor who tells them they have the cure. The consulate warns immigrants to avoid consultants or back-alley attorneys who promise a quick fix.

"We say go to an attorney," said Hortencia Treviño Iglesias, who heads the consulate's protection department. "You may not like it, but they will tell you the truth."

Trevino said she gets regular complaints from former Cristo Vive clients. The most recent came earlier this month from an Austin woman, a U.S. citizen, trying to get legal status for her husband.

"The only thing they took from us was money," said Eda Lara, who paid Cristo Vive $360 . "They never did anything."

Lara's husband was arrested June 6 on a charges of driving with an invalid license and is being held in the Bastrop County Jail pending action by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Sanchez said he stands by the work Cristo Vive and former staff attorney Raul Garcia did for Lara and her husband, which included filing a new petition and then a Freedom of Information Act request when immigration authorities never responded.

Sanchez suggested the file's disappearance could have resulted if Lara and her husband did not correctly submit payment to immigration authorities; Lara said she believed that Cristo Vive would handle the payment.

Dan Cosgrove, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said files with incorrect payments are returned to the senders. Sanchez said authorities never returned the petition.

"We don't know whatever happened to the file," he said. "It's weird but nevertheless happens."

Sanchez said local attorneys are driven by fear of competition to drive him out of business and insists that Cristo Vive has filled a need in Austin: low-cost help for immigrants.

But several local immigration attorneys say they have received dozens of former Cristo Vive clients asking for help to fix their cases, something they don't see from other nonprofit immigration firms that have been recognized by the federal government.

Edna Yang, general counsel of American Gateways (previously PAPA), said her organization has seen many clients who were told by Cristo Vive that they could be helped, despite not having a case for a visa or residency.

"We would essentially tell them the bad news: it was a waste of money," Yang said. Cristo Vive "gave a lot of false hope and took a lot of money."

Sanchez said Cristo Vive did not file immigration applications for clients without legitimate cases.

A long history

Cristo Vive has a long history in Austin, beginning in 1987, when it was one of numerous organizations given government approval to work on the flood of immigration cases ushered in by the so-called amnesty bill of 1986. As a recognized Qualified Designated Entity between 1987 and 1989, Cristo Vive filed more than 3,000 amnesty applications, according to Sanchez.

But when the program ended, local lawyers say, Cristo Vive continued to provide legal help to immigrants in violation of state and federal law.

"The rest of the (qualified designated entities) closed their doors, but (Sanchez) decided to open this business for himself and his family," Parsons said.

In 1989, Cristo Vive applied for recognition from the Board of Immigration Appeals, a prerequisite to representing clients in immigration courts or before the Department of Homeland Security.

The application was rejected because Cristo Vive lacked "adequate knowledge, information or experience to practice immigration law," according to the Department of Justice.

Over the next 13 years, Cristo Vive would be denied accreditation twice more, in part because of complaints from local immigration attorneys.

In 1995, the state's Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee obtained a consent decree and permanent injunction in Travis County District Court against Cristo Vive, barring the organization from advising immigrants about their legal rights or representing itself as qualified or authorized to practice law. It was also barred from using the words "immigration services" or "immigration consultant" in relation to its business.

Sanchez argues that the order did not prevent Cristo Vive from hiring a licensed immigration attorney to perform its legal work, and the agency has worked with nine attorneys over the years. The committee argued that despite the hiring, Cristo Vive and Sanchez himself continued to dispense legal advice and help immigrants fill out applications to the federal government without the oversight of an attorney.

In 2005, Cristo Vive attorney Raul Garcia received a public reprimand from the State Bar of Texas for assisting Sanchez in committing the unauthorized practice of law, fee-splitting with a nonlawyer and practicing in private practice under a trade name.

Garcia challenged the disciplinary action, but the state's 3rd Court of Appeals ruled against him in 2007.

Shortly after, Sanchez said, Garcia left Cristo Vive and became an independent immigration attorney.

Court records indicate that Cristo Vive served between 3,400 and 5,400 clients per year from 1999 to 2001, during which time it collected fees ranging from $230,000 to $619,000 annually. Garcia, who joined Cristo Vive in 2001, received a salary of about $50,000 a year, while Sanchez earned $85,000, according to the Court of Appeals decision. (More recent tax filings show lower numbers: in 2009, Cristo Vive reported revenue of $155,000, with compensation to Sanchez of $39,674.)

Accredited immigration nonprofits in Austin say such a caseload seems large, given the time needed to review and prepare what are often complicated and difficult immigration forms.

"I (personally) may see 800 to 1,000 clients per year, and I feel I don't have a lot of time," English said.

Cristo Vive was just one of Sanchez's business enterprises. According to state records, the Mexico City native previously ran a local Spanish-language television station and an enterprise called the National Check Recovery Association.

In 2004, Sanchez changed the name of the company to the Sanrod Trade Corp., which, according to a press release, developed a residential project in San Miguel de Allende called Sonterra. He also runs a tax preparation service out of the same address as Cristo Vive.

Sanchez said Cristo Vive was originally associated with Maranatha Campus Ministries and later with Grace Christian Church of Austin. According to a biography on his Facebook page, Sanchez says, "I (am) still serving God and the aliens."

When asked, he offered the names of a number of satisfied clients. Among them: Celestino Lares Castaneda, who said he already had U.S. residency when Cristo Vive helped him obtain citizenship in 2006.

"Everything went well," Castaneda said. "They did what they said they would do."

'Consistent problems'

Kevin Lashus, the lead attorney on the case for the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, said the biggest obstacle to pursuing Cristo Vive in court has been finding witnesses and persuading them to testify.

"Finding those special people is very difficult," Lashus said.

A previous attempt fell short when Cristo Vive clients declined to testify in court, members of the committee said.

This year, the committee found a willing immigrant couple and went to court in a third attempt to win a contempt of court order against Cristo Vive. Presenting the testimony of the couple, who said Sanchez did legal work for them, it won a contempt of court decree in March.

Walding, with the Bernardo Kohler Center, said he has seen "consistent problems" with Cristo Vive cases for the past decade.

"Ten years ago, I thought it was incompetence, but now it seems malevolent to me," Walding said. "I think they've made quite a bit of money that way."

One of Walding's clients, who asked that he not be identified because he is facing deportation proceedings, said he went to Cristo Vive in the summer of 2008 looking for political asylum.

The man, a former government worker in Colombia, said he had fled his homeland because of threats of violence from paramilitary groups and arrived in Austin on a visitor visa.

The man said Sanchez charged him $2,000 to submit an application on his behalf for a religious worker visa.

"I was looking for political asylum," the man said. "He said it didn't matter — they just needed something. Since I didn't know anything, I believed him."

Sanchez said that Cristo Vive does not handle political asylum cases and that the man never mentioned his fear of persecution in Colombia. He said the man paid less than $200 to Cristo Vive, which was working to extend his visitor visa while the man "got his church to help."

Once his visa expired, the man said he lived illegally in Austin.

"I couldn't return, and I couldn't stay here," he said. "You feel panic, fear. You feel like everything is falling on top of you. It's as if I came with cancer and he injected me with malaria."

Eventually he found the Bernard Kohler Center, where Walding advised him to go before an asylum officer and plead his case. After hearing of his travails, the officer referred him to a judge to rehear his case.

Walding, an accredited immigration representative, will argue, as Salazar's attorney did, that his client did not originally file for asylum in his initial one-year window because of the advice he received at Cristo Vive.

Sanchez said that Cristo Vive is in the process of closing its files on current clients, returning original documents and sending new clients to area attorneys, including Garcia.

He remains hopeful that Cristo Vive can win recognition from the federal government and continue its immigration work.

Some of his former clients say they hope that doesn't happen.

"We were lucky, but I imagine many people were not," said Salazar, who is now studying nursing. "If I hadn't found (the UT immigration law clinic), I would still be cleaning houses. We would still be undocumented."


For many years, the issue of fraudulent immigration consultants has been a persistent problem in Texas, where enforcement faces significant hurdles.

The main whistle-blowers are the Texas attorney general's office, usually in the form of civil cases alleging violations of deceptive trade practices, and the state's Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, established by the Texas Supreme Court to investigate allegations of improper legal representation.

Few immigration consulting frauds in Texas are prosecuted criminally.

JoanAlys Smith, who heads the Austin district of the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, said the civil penalties her group can exact are limited.

"To an individual who intends to engage in the unauthorized practice of law, a civil injunction is a popgun until a judge holds them in contempt," she said.

And though the attorney general's office has brought more than 60 enforcement actions against fraudulent consultants over the past eight years, it brought only three between 2008 and 2010. The agency said it continued to send cease-and-desist letters to unauthorized consultants during those years.

"You have to realize that the (undocumented immigrant) community doesn't vote; they don't have a political voice," said Austin attorney Kevin Lashus, a member of the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee. "It's hard to justify to the American public the need to devote these limited resources to the problem."

However, earlier this month, officials from federal and state agencies announced a new joint effort to make such fraud a priority. The same day, the state attorney general's office announced enforcement action against four immigration consultants, seeking up to $20,000 in penalties per violation. That makes a dozen consultants or notarios accused of fraud that the agency has taken action against since last summer.

Bill Cobb, deputy attorney general for civil litigation, said he began his position in August with a plan to refocus on such cases.

"It was important and was something (Attorney General Greg Abbott) had identified as a priority," he said.

The federal response includes training and accrediting more agencies to handle immigration cases.

It comes as immigration lawyers say increasing numbers of immigrants are seeking legal help and advice because of stepped up enforcement of immigration laws. President Barack Obama's administration has deported record numbers of immigrants over the past two years.

Officials stressed that combating consulting scams that take advantage of immigrants requires witnesses to come forward.

"That's the challenge we have," said Jerry Robinette, the special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations office in San Antonio. "They fear they are here illegally but our priority is identifying the scammers."

"They need to be unmasked, and they need to be punished, and in many instances they need to go to jail," said John Morton, the assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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