2026-06-25
6 分钟The Economist.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
I'm Charlotte Howard.
I'm the co-host of our American podcast, Checks and Balance.
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But in late April, the sheriff announced something stranger.
The state attorney general's office is accusing a man,
his wife and two others of running a fake immigration law firm out of a boarded up Orlando storefront.
Operating as legacy immigrant, they allegedly charged hundreds of immigrants, mostly Brazilians in at least four states,
for bogus services and filed fraudulent asylum applications on their behalf while holding their real documents ransom.
The indictment claims that the foursome swindled aspiring Americans out of more than $20 million.
Federal prosecutors in New York are going after an even more elaborate scheme.
They say a group of Colombian defendants not only posed as lawyers and extorted clients,
but dressed in judges' robes and police uniforms, staged sham court hearings over video calls,
and issued fake documents stamped with government seals.
They even convinced clients to skip real court hearings, leaving them more vulnerable to deportation.
The indictments expose a business that is booming in Donald Trump's America,
as the administration narrows legal pathways to citizenship and ramps up deportations.
More immigrants are becoming desperate for legal protection.