Law Creates Opportunity : An Entrepreneurial Army Beats Drum for Amnesty

Jake Senter needed a sure thing.

Scrambling to recoup lost investments in Louisiana’s failing natural gas industry, the New Orleans lawyer cast about aimlessly in the early months of 1986 trying to find a new source of income. Then Senter read with growing fascination about a proposed law that would allow illegal aliens to gain citizenship through a massive amnesty.

When Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act that November, the general practitioner made the decision to specialize. Soon, he had new business cards. “Jacobo Senter, Abogado, “ they read. “Centro Legal de Imigracion y Amnistia. “

Jake Senter had entered the amnesty business.

“With all those people lining up to become good Americans, I figured there would be plenty of work for lawyers,” he said.

He hasn’t been disappointed. These days, Senter strides through new offices in El Paso and Houston wearing denim jackets and shiny snakeskin boots--gifts from some of the 2,500 immigrants he has helped legalize. By the time the one-year program ends this May, Senter may reel in as much as $1 million and 3,000 new clients, including many he expects will return for legal advice long after they become citizens.

New laws often have lucrative side effects, creating opportunity for entrepreneurs shrewd enough to help people cope with unsettling change. To contend with the needs of the 1.3 million immigrants who have sought amnesty, the immigration law has brought forth an entrepreneurial army.

In ethnic neighborhoods of every major U.S. city, untold numbers of public notaries, paralegals and merchants have rented typewriters and copying machines, then turned their small shops into amnesty mills. Their chief competitors are attorneys, many of whom once shunned immigration law but now eagerly seek legalization cases. Self-styled immigration experts churn out guides and videotapes, hoping to make a quick profit before the program ends.

‘Amnesty City’

A bustling Latino commercial strip on Soto Street in East Los Angeles is now referred to as “Amnesty City” by clients who patronize two dozen clinics clustered near a lone federal immigration office. Travel agencies in the heart of Chicago’s Polish community routinely charge $500 to fill out four-page applications. In Miami, Haitian and Cuban couples seeking legalization have paid as much as $1,200 to an off-duty Dade County policeman who trades on a long career filling out paper work.

Federal officials are generally satisfied by the performance of these newcomers, finding little apparent difference in quality between their work and applications filed by more experienced immigration hands. “On the whole, these consultants are doing a pretty damn good job,” said John Bowser, director of the government’s busiest amnesty office, in the mid-Wilshire district. “You can see it in their product.”

But profiteering in the amnesty industry has occasionally veered into outright fraud. In a small, but well-publicized spate of abuses, illegal aliens have lost precious wages and identity documents to swindlers and poorly managed clinics. Most states have relied on occasional prosecutions and public awareness--not always an effective defense in immigrant communities swept by uncertainty about the law.

Even aware of those risks, many illegal aliens decide to let their language difficulties, confusion over government requirements and fear of immigration officials outweigh their concerns about fraud.

“I couldn’t have done this alone,” said David Noteras, 46, a Mexican factory worker who stood in line recently in an East Los Angeles shopping mall. He clutched a loose-leaf binder filled with documents assembled for $150 by a tax preparer.

Federal Immigration and Naturalization Service officials insist that illegal aliens can easily prepare their own cases. They tout figures indicating that 80% of all applicants have gone directly to the agency, and that the program’s approval rate is 98%. “Our message has been that people can do these forms by themselves,” said James Turnage, INS district director in San Diego.

The remaining 20% have applied through a network of social agencies set up by the INS to process amnesty cases. The agencies were brought in to provide a low-cost alternative to lawyers.

Yet those who work with immigrants say that a large majority of aliens who appear to have gone straight to the INS have in fact gone first to amnesty preparers. Long delays and frequent foul-ups at the social agencies and heavy advertising in the ethnic media by lawyers and consultants have convinced many to seek high-priced help. “A lot of immigrants think the more you pay, the better service you get,” said Jay Fong, an attorney at the Downtown Legalization Project, a low-cost amnesty center in Los Angeles.

Some INS officials concede the point. At the agency’s mid-Wilshire legalization office, immigrants who manage no more than a few garbled English phrases show up daily with error-free application forms and documents bundled in professionally sorted packets.

For many, the trip from the neighborhood consultant to the INS office is a few short steps. When the INS office opened its cavernous office in a vacant commercial building on Wilshire Boulevard last May, it was the only occupant. Now the floor above the office is occupied by suites filled with immigration lawyers, amnesty processors and a photography and fingerprint studio.

Inviting Name

In the Northern California city of Stockton, one amnesty clinic opened a bit too close to the INS. Federal officials noticed that confused illegal aliens were flocking next door to the Express Lane Immigration Service instead of their own office. When Express Lane charged aliens $30 for Social Security forms that the INS provides free, the unamused officials decided to act, according to Loren Montgomery, assistant director of the INS office.

“We told them to stop the funny business and get a different name,” he said.

Trying to stand out among the competition, some enterprising businessmen pitch novel products. Albuquerque publisher George Willig pushes a $9.95 “Amnesty Do-Yourself Guide” for immigrants, claiming it “demystifies the process.” For $375, Yancey Hawkins, a mellifluous Los Angeles paralegal, encourages immigrants to work out their amnesty cases by telephone.

“Are you an illegal alien?” intones an announcer on one of Hawkins’ radio ads. “Whatever your immigration problems, Phone Immigration can help you now. Get legalized now and pay later!”

The price for non-professional amnesty work can range as low as $75 a case, undercutting even the social service agencies, and as high as $750, approaching fees charged by lawyers--whose rates hover between $1,000 and $2,000 a case. The bewildering cost scale “seems to have more to do with rent, overhead and profit motive than with expertise,” said Deputy Los Angeles City Atty. Sue L. Frauens.

The Zapateria Guadalajara, a shoe store in Huntington Park, charges just $75. Behind rows of Italian boots and spiked pumps, Sonja Carbajal pecks at a battered typewriter six days a week, preparing cases. “The price is low,” explained manager Julian Loera, “because we can make it back in shoes.”

The Zapateria, like many consultants, supplements regular business with occasional amnesty work. Others are public notaries, who juggle immigration work with traditional services such as preparing tax forms.

Optimistic Start

National Amnesty Consultants, a Texas-based firm, tried to become the H & R Block of amnesty clinics, forming a nationwide chain catering to immigrants’ needs. Since starting out last May with offices in 14 cities, the firm has shrunk to a seven-city operation. Legal problems with Texas consumer authorities were partly to blame, but so was fierce competition in Denver, Chicago and San Jose.

“It seems like every grocery store is doing immigration,” said Mort Resnick, who has renamed the struggling firm Mort Resnick Legal Clinics.

In Los Angeles, where the firm also closed a branch, Arturo Aguirre, president of the National Assn. of Immigration Consultants, estimates that 300 amnesty clinics are vying for business.

When Jake Senter decided to open a new office in El Paso, he chose that city precisely because of the lack of rivals. He tested the market in March, 1987, with a series of advertisements on Spanish-language television. The ads, featuring “Star Wars” effects and martial music, ran during wrestling matches and late-night movies. That month he had 100 inquiries.

Senter charges his mostly Mexican clients $650 a person, adding in another $200 for spouses and $75 for each child. The cost is moderate compared to rates charged by many big-city lawyers, but extra work sometimes balloons his fees into the $3,000 range.

To master the intricacies of the law, Senter attends legal conferences and tries to keep pace with ever-changing federal regulations. He is in good company. Warren Leiden, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., estimates that his organization has grown from 2,400 to 2,800 members since the immigration law was enacted--a sizable jump compared to the group’s steady growth in recent years.

Continuation Expected

Veteran immigration lawyers believe that hundreds of other attorneys made a similar switch without joining the association. Carl M. Shusterman, an experienced Los Angeles immigration attorney, expects the instant specialists to continue at it “for the next three or four years,” until the remaining amnesty cases wind their way through appeals.

Some specialists worry that abuses and overcharging by their new colleagues may tarnish them all as opportunists. “It’s something we shudder about in private,” said a New York immigration lawyer. “But there’s nothing we can do to control someone else’s avarice.”

Even before the amnesty began, law enforcement authorities braced for an expected wave of fraud and fee abuses. The abuses have come, but officials are uncertain about the numbers of victims. The difficulty, prosecutors say, is that immigrants assume that once they have turned over their papers to amnesty processors the cases are promptly filed. Only after the May 4 deadline will many who have gone to fraudulent or mismanaged services begin to learn of their mistakes.

Amnesty abuse prosecutions have been rare in most states. Consumer protection experts often prefer to issue warning letters and negotiate with offending businesses. In Southern California, the interagency Immigration Law Task Force has prosecuted 10 amnesty fraud cases and is investigating another 50. Nearly 100 other cases have been settled through quiet negotiations.

All year, officials in the task force have gathered frequently to issue stern warnings about amnesty fraud. Some critics have suggested that authorities spend more time making cosmetic announcements than actively investigating cases. “We can’t enforce laws without complaints,” replied Assistant Los Angeles City Atty. Ellen R. Pais. “We need to get the word out so immigrants feel comfortable coming forward.”

Public Exposure

Public humiliation sometimes turns the trick. In Dallas, the Don Pedrito Jaramillo Society,a spiritualist group, made claims that their secret bond with a higher power allowed them to solve love problems, dispatch enemies and fill out amnesty forms--all for just under $200 a visit. Clients entered a shabby office cluttered with posters of one-eyed pyramids, rabbits’ feet and copying machines.

“They never came right out and said it, but they implied that if you did your amnesty with them, you had God on your side,” said Oliver Farres, the Mexican consul-general in Dallas. “But they weren’t filing cases.”

Angered by the inaction of local authorities, Farres began attacking the group during weekly radio broadcasts. That, coupled with investigative reports in the Spanish-language press, was sufficient to drive the society out of the amnesty business.

Some illegal aliens have paid exorbitant fees to public notaries who advertised as notario publicos, the name for specialized Latin American attorneys. Irma Garcia, a Torrance bindery employee, knew that her neighborhood notary was a simple clerk. But she expected her $200 amnesty case to be filed properly. Instead, it was rejected by INS officials as poorly prepared. When she angrily complained, the notary shrugged and told her he would refile it, but only for an added fee. Instead, she went to a lawyer.

There is often a fine line between mismanagement and willful abuse. The distinction is at issue in Los Angeles’ largest amnesty abuse case.

Last August, police and consumer protection agents raided the offices of El Norte Inc., an amnesty mill run by Sidney Ross, a former executive of the Famous Amos cookie manufacturing firm. The INS and the city attorney’s office had dozens of complaints from the firm’s 1,500 clients about unprocessed cases and original identity documents held hostage until all fees were paid.

Unfinished Work

Investigators found files packed with original documents and blank application forms. “In most cases, they hadn’t done any work at all,” said Ellen Pais, who prosecuted the case. One internal El Norte memo ordered staff to refrain from any work on a file until half the $500 fee was paid and not submit it to the INS until the full fee was in--a procedure never specified in El Norte contracts.

The firm and several executives pleaded no contest in January to violating several state consumer laws and were fined $19,710. The firm’s attorney, Albert F. Coombes, heatedly insists that the firm was prosecuted “for publicity’s sake, to get the (immigration) task force off the hook for not going after the real fraud cases.” According to Pais, the firm was a “big fish.” Both lawyers said the firm is now trying to resolve remaining complaints.

When the amnesty period ends May 4, prosecutors and INS officials expect some opportunists to simply alter their operations to fit the next phase of the immigration law. “We wouldn’t be surprised if some of them get involved in education,” said INS Los Angeles legalization director Gene Pyeatt, referring to requirements that newly legalized immigrants show sufficiency in English and American history and civics.

Enfoque, a local Spanish-language television guide, is already carrying ads portraying a somber new citizen standing before an American flag. The man holds a copy of “Magic,” an English-training videotape. On Broadway, a storefront billboard urges passers-by to try “Instant English” classes.

Still processing amnesty cases, Jake Senter is intrigued by this latest wrinkle. “I’m looking into it,” he said. As the May deadline approaches, he is flying to El Paso and Houston every two weeks. There, his immigrant clients invite him to weddings, cook him lunch once a week--and bring more in legal work, including 100 appeals of INS rulings, which could take years to exhaust.

“For a lot of these people, I’m the first lawyer they’ve known. They’re already coming back with divorce cases, income tax forms, insurance problems,” Senter said. “We’re cleaning up their lives.”