Maryland Man pleads guilty to immigration scheme

A 29 year old man, Robert Fred Majia, from Maryland, pleaded guilty to an immigration scheme that he and a co-conspirator had going from approximately, December 2007 until June 2009.  It appears that Majia and a conspirator charged people for immigration services which they never provided. Some instances consisted of individuals bringing Majia and his conspirator $5,000 or more for assistance with immigration documents. Mejia and co-conspirator completed immigration documents, even went as far as taking their fingerprints, however, they never actually filed any documents on behalf of their clients. Moreover, to make it seem even more real and to entice people into their scheme, Majia dressed as an ICE employee, even drove a vehicle that was similar to a police car.  As a result of this scheme, approximately 50-250 victims lost between $400,000-$1million. 

I have to say that I am not surprised at this story.  In fact, I am surprised that more people are not caught doing similar schemes.  Perhaps, this man went a little beyond what I have seen and heard from clients and colleagues by impersonating ICE officials, but all in all, this seems to be a very common scheme.   A lot of paralegal services offer immigration assistance and assistance in obtaining divorces to individuals.  They even have ads in the paper advertising their services.  I believe, I even spoke about this in one of my previous posts.  When clients call them, they give them a much cheaper price than an attorney would give for the same services.  However, these people often do not know what they are doing, they collect money from these clients and then they disappear, allowing their clients to think that everything has been done and everything is good.  Then when clients get an NTA notice and attempt to contact the individual whom they paid and who was suppose to provide them with immigration services, those people are nowhere to be found.  And when finally, they seek help from an attorney and the attorney does some research, it comes to light that nothing was ever done for these people and they are now in deportation proceedings. Sometimes, however, those services do provide immigration assistance, however, sometimes, it is best if they did not.  Because of their lack of legal knowledge, they always make mistakes, which often makes things worse for their clients, sometimes those errors are irreversible.   

I cannot say this often enough, how important it is to make sure you get assistance for  immigration issues, or any other legal issues which you may be faced with from a licensed attorney, knowledgeable in that area. Perhaps you may pay a little more for such services than you would to someone who is not an attorney, but at least you will know that things will get done correctly. Because even if you do save money at first by going to a paralegal service or some other non-attorney who offers to help you with your situations, 9 out of 10 times, you will still end up seeking services from an attorney due to ineffective or lack of assistance that you get from such individuals, in which situations, you are likely to pay much more money to fix a problem, then you would have if you had done things properly in the first place. After all, it is your livelihood that is on the line... it is not the time or place to start looking for the cheapest answer.