Protesters Say Notaries Are Defrauding Aliens

About 75 members of an immigrants’ rights group marched in downtown Santa Ana Wednesday evening to protest what they said are fraudulent practices by notary publics purporting to help illegal aliens gain amnesty.

“Amnesty yes! Swindlers no!,” shouted one protester in Spanish as he marched past the office of a notary public and immigration lawyer on Broadway. Others held signs with slogans such as “Down with the despicable notaries” that were written in Spanish.

Office Occupied

About 25 of the protesters, members of the Orange County chapter of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, briefly occupied the office of one immigration consultant.

After about 20 minutes of shouting slogans and demanding restitution for one Mexican immigrant couple, they left quietly when asked to do so by Santa Ana police.

Nativo V. Lopez, the group’s leader, said some notary publics in Orange County are practicing law without a license and violating codes that restrict services they can provide.

“We want to raise the issue of abuses being committed by (notary publics),” Lopez said. “We are asking that the district attorney set up a special investigating unit . . . to curb these unlawful business practices.”

One common practice of some notaries, Lopez said, has been to charge undocumented aliens trying to gain legal status “exaggerated fees,” while holding out false hope of legalization and sometimes never filing applications at all.

The state government code forbids immigration consultants who also are notary publics from advertising that fact.

Different Meaning

Another section of the code forbids notaries from using the Spanish words notario publico in advertising their business because of the weight those words carry in some Latin American countries.

“A notario publico in Mexico is an individual qualified to administer legal advice, opinions and consultations,” said John Andrade, a special investigator with the secretary of state’s notary division. “In California, he takes oaths, acknowledgments, or notarizes documents . . . and that’s all.”

Also, state law limits the fee that a notary public may charge to process a set of papers relating to a change in a person’s immigration status to $10, Andrade said.

With justthree investigators, the secretary of state’s notary division can’t keep an eye on all 140,000 notary publics in California, said Andrade, who works on immigration-related violations nearly full time.

Lopez said ome notaries are charging hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to assist undocumented aliens in applying for amnesty under the new federal immigration law.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these people,” Lopez said. “And people are out there charging them lots of money for bad advice.”

Beginning May 5, illegal aliens who have lived in the United States continuously since Jan. 1, 1982, have no criminal records and are not likely to become public charges may apply for status as legal residents. Some agricultural workers who have lived in the United States less than five years may qualify under another section of the law.

An interagency task force--including representatives of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the state attorney general’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department--has been established in Los Angeles County to investigate immigration rip-off artists.

No such agency has yet been set up in Orange County. Later this month, however, the county’s fraud task force--made up of fraud detectives from all of the county’s law enforcement agencies--will discuss taking similar steps, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gay Geiser-Sandoval said Wednesday.

Shortly after the demonstration began about 5:30 p.m., part of the group marched upstairs to the 4th Street office of Patrick Hogan, an immigration consultant who works with an attorney. The protesters demanded that Hogan return $800 in fees that an immigrant couple paid five years ago to his mother, Mary Mendoza Hogan, a notary public who recently died.

The young Santa Ana couple, Robert and Adriana Pedroza, who were seeking legal status, sued Mary Hogan for the money in small-claims court earlier this year. They alleged Wednesday that Patrick Hogan took over responsibility for the case.

In 1981, the couple said Mary Hogan took $800 to prepare immigration documents in anticipation of the eventual passage of amnesty legislation. But when the couple went back to her after the federal amnesty law was passed in November, they alleged, she asked for more money.

“ Ahora mismo (right now), we want the money,” said Maria Rosa Ibarra, one of the demonstration’s leaders, who spoke for the couple.

Hogan, who had clients in his small office, responded that he sometimes helped his mother on immigration cases but had not assumed responsibility for her debts. She filed for bankruptcy before she died, he said.

“You’re not doing this right,” Hogan told the demonstrators. “Serve whatever papers you want and let’s go to court. We’ll let the judge decide.”