By pacbiztimes Friday, July 31st, 2020

Only professionals with law licenses are supposed to provide legal advice on immigration issues, and for good reason. Simple mistakes on government forms can cost immigrants their chance at staying in the country.

But in practice, many immigrants rely on organizations that operate in a grey area. These providers are often legitimately licensed as a “notary public” in California, but they don’t have the ability to represent clients in court or give legal advice, as an attorney would.

The American Bar Association warns about the distinction between a “notary public” in the U.S., someone simply authorized to witness documents, and a “notario publico” in Mexico, Latin America and much of Europe, who can act as an authorized legal representative. The translation problem “creates a unique opportunity for fraud or deception,” the ABA website warns.

For the past year, Maria Rodriguez has been working with attorneys and organizations to help clamp down on the problem in Ventåura County. She and California Lutheran professor Cynthia Duarte recently received the first $10,000 Social Justice Fellowship from the Social Justice Fund of Ventura County to fund their work.

The fellowship will help them continue to collect information, present research and produce educational materials. But the Ventura County Community Foundation and others believe it will take a substantial increase in funding for attorneys to offer low-cost or even pro bono legal services to put a dent in the problem.

Rodriguez first found out about the issue while working for Vanessa Frank, a Ventura-based immigration attorney, during Rodriguez’s senior year at California Lutheran University. Rodriguez didn’t know what she wanted to do after graduation, but she had received a small grant to research a social issue. Frank suggested Rodriguez look into what is often known as notary fraud.

“When she first mentioned it to me, that was something I really wanted to learn about and see how it was affecting people socially and financially,” Rodriguez said.

As part of her work, Rodriguez has compiled a list of organizations that offer to help people with immigration issues but are not law firms. A Google search shows several notary firms offering immigration document services in Oxnard, where the Mexican Consulate is located.

What troubles attorney Frank is that the penalty for a mistake in immigration papers is not just that the fee is lost or that the application is rejected and sent back. People who have errors in their papers can be deported and permanently barred from entering the country, even if they have family or a business in the United States.

“It’s very difficult to convey how not OK this is,” Frank said. “This is not OK at all.”

Frank sees a lot of the aftermath in her work as an attorney. She estimated that between 50 and 60 percent of her clients have been victims of notary fraud.

Immigrants are particularly vulnerable because they often can’t access legal advice, either because of a language barrier or expense, and they don’t know how to find legitimate low-cost options in their area.

Rodriguez has three main goals for her work. She wants to keep families together by reducing detentions and deportations. Part of that was developing the list of unlicensed providers in the area.

A second goal is to meet local stakeholders and create educational material to spread the word about the issue, which Rodriguez is working on.

Rodriguez’ third goal is to convince the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office to set up a unit dedicated to investigating deceptive practices by notaries in the area.

“Nobody’s watching, so they keep rolling through the stop sign,” Frank said. “Who cares if an immigrant gets ripped off?”

People have been prosecuted in Ventura County for posing as immigration consultants and lawyers. In 2015, Jorge Moreno was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was charged and found guilty of several crimes, including grand theft and extortion, and was ordered to pay restitution to his victims.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Kevin Drescher, who leads the special prosecutions unit, said his office would take seriously any case that came before it.

“We don’t want anyone to be victimized in our county,” Drescher said.

Most notary fraud cases would likely go to the county’s consumer protection unit, he said, since they involve businesses offering fraudulent services and advice.

For its part, the Ventura County Community Foundation gave more than $100,000 this year to more than double the support it provides to attorneys in the county who will work with immigrants pro bono. That way, people can receive qualified legal advice and pursue a path towards citizenship.

“We really need to ensure that people have qualified resources,” said Vanessa Bechtel, the Community Foundation’s president and CEO. “People’s lives are on the line, them and their families.”

— Contact Amber Hair at [email protected]