Some Lawyers Said to Prey on Illegal Immigrants

Ramin Rahimian
The New York Times
Published: August 14, 2009

For $2,800, Silvia Alfaro said, a well-known immigration lawyer in Salt Lake City promised that her husband would get a green card and her family a shot at their American dream.

Ms. Alfaro, a United States citizen, said she told the lawyer, James Hector Alcala, that her husband, Leonel, had lived illegally in this country for 17 years and once was deported. Mr. Alcala promised to take care of everything, she recalled, and he said her husband was a good man.

But when, at the lawyer’s urging, Mr. Alfaro showed up last April at a federal immigration office in Salt Lake City for an interview for a green card, he was immediately taken into custody. The next day he was on a plane back to Mexico.

“I felt completely destroyed,â€