Law Targets Immigration ‘Consultants’
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ALBANY – New York State is cracking down on “immigration consultants” who collect exorbitant fees for giving illegal aliens often dubious help with their legal paperwork.
Legislation signed into law yesterday by Governor Pataki makes it a crime for such consultants, often referred to as “notarios,” to exaggerate their qualifications, claim they can get special treatment from a government agency, advise their customers to provide false information, or threaten to report customers to immigration authorities.
The law, which takes effect November 1, also requires the consultants to provide clients with a plain-language contract, permit clients to cancel and receive a refund within three days, post a $50,000 bond to compensate clients they mistreat, and display signs notifying customers of their rights.
The law may even prevent some consultants from using the Spanish term “notarios.” Many are notary publics, licensed by the state to witness official documents. In Latin American countries, however, “notarios” refers to an attorney with specialized training. The law forbids immigration consultants from using misleading titles.
Violations are to be prosecuted by the attorney general’s office, and punished with fines of up to $7,500 for each offense. The law tackles a significant problem for New York’s huge population of immigrants. According to statistics from the governor’s office,4 million New Yorkers, or one out of every five, are foreign-born, and about 2 million are noncitizens eligible for naturalization.
“Too often, immigrants are the victims of unreliable advice and outright scams by so-called immigration consultants,” Mr. Pataki said at a bill-signing ceremony yesterday at Battery Park. “This law will help guard against these abuses from taking place.”
Many of the people who turn to immigrant consultants are undocumented aliens who are applying for legal status – for example, as an asylum seekers or the spouse of a legal resident. Often, however, the consultants are scam artists who charge thousands of dollars for bad advice, according to the Albany representative of the New York Immigration Coalition, Mark Lewis.
“We believe the bill will help put the really egregious players in the field … out of business,” Mr. Lewis said.
The New York chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Matthew Dunn, argued that law should go further and prohibit anyone not accredited by the federal government from selling advice on immigration matters. Mr. Dunn called the new law “counter productive because it’s giving legitimacy to those who are preying on the community.”
“We’re not legitimizing anything,” said the Senate sponsor of the bill, Frank Padavan, a Republican of Queens. “We’re making people who are supposedly serving immigrants do so in an ethical, legal manger. They’re not going to be ripping people off as they have been in some cases.”
A proponent of tougher enforcement of immigration laws, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said he has no objection to what New York is doing.
“There’s plenty of legal immigrants who would want to go to these [consultants] as well,” Mr. Krikorian said. “Our immigrant population is extraordinarily poorly education and they’re coming from pre-modern societies, so the whole idea of dealing with a bureaucracy can be scary for them. … One of the things government is supposed to do is make sure there isn’t fraud, and that’s what this is.”