A Washington state attorney promised “miracles” to tens of thousands of immigrants seeking legal status in the United States, but instead created fake stories of domestic abuse and human trafficking to apply for humanitarian visas without her clients’ knowledge, according to several lawsuits and a legal ethics investigation.
Alexandra Lozano is accused of running an assembly-line operation that drained immigrants’ bank accounts while leaving them at risk of deportation, hiring workers who lacked proper legal credentials and copying clients’ signatures onto documents they never saw, the suits allege.
Lozano operated a practice that served tens of thousands of immigrant clients, according to the lawsuits. The complaints allege she preyed on immigrants’ desperation to drain their bank accounts while leaving them vulnerable to deportation.
The lawsuits accuse Lozano of hiring staff who lacked proper legal credentials and creating a system to process applications in bulk. The complaints allege that she or her staff copied clients’ signatures onto immigration documents they never saw.
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, said his family paid Lozano tens of thousands of dollars. He told the Associated Press that Lozano duped his family and that his mother was placed in removal proceedings despite being married to a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The alleged scheme involved the creation of false narratives of domestic abuse and human trafficking, which were used as the basis for applications for humanitarian visas, the lawsuits say. Clients were unaware their applications contained fabricated claims, according to the complaints.