Immigration Fraud Case Hits a Barrier of Fear : Investigation: Fearing deportation and the court system, a 65-year-old woman refuses to testify against a business that allegedly preyed on her and others who sought U.S. residency and employment.

When the clerk at Immigration Depot promised to get her a job and legal residency for only $550, Rosalva wondered who would hire a sick, 65-year-old grandmother but found the offer too tempting to turn down.

Authorities now say Rosalva, an illegal immigrant who put a $100 down payment on her dream of moving about freely without fear, was defrauded. But Rosalva--afraid of the people who bilked her, and of the authorities from whom she has hidden for the past six years--has refused to testify for prosecutors trying to put a case together against the company.

So fearful is Rosalva that she has turned down an offer from state and federal authorities that, in effect, would amount to a second chance at her dream. Rosalva, who spoke on the condition that she would not be identified, wants to go home to Mexico to visit her 12 children and dozens of grandchildren, some of whom she has never seen. But she won’t risk the trip as an illegal immigrant because she might not be allowed to return to the United States where her youngest--a 9-year-old son born when she was 56--lives under hospital care.

Authorities have offered Rosalva temporary legal residency until the criminal case against employees of Immigration Depot, a storefront business that recently opened in downtown Santa Ana, can be heard. Rosalva has refused the offer.

She does not want to offend the owners of Immigration Depot, who have her address, her phone number and her fingerprints. She is also fearful, she said, of a court system she does not understand.

“I immediately decided that I was not going to go,” said Rosalva, who was contacted through social workers and agreed to be interviewed only by phone.

“This is not my country. . . ,” Rosalva continued, speaking through an interpreter. “I’m afraid.”

If Rosalva is afraid, she is not alone. She is among as many as 160 victims of Immigration Depot, authorities said last week.

On Thursday, Santa Ana police arrested two employees of the company, Ali B. Vasquez, 60, and Adriana C. Iniquez, 20, both of Santa Ana, and seized files on 160 illegal immigrants. Proprietor Ed Cervantes was not at the office when the arrests were made. Neither he nor the women could be reached for comment.

Moreover, authorities say, Immigration Depot is only one of a proliferating number of businesses in Southern California that have been set up to profit on the desperation of illegal immigrants.

“In Santa Ana I would estimate that there are about 30,” said Dorothy Edwards, executive director of American Immigration Foundation, a community-based, nonprofit organization in Santa Ana. “That’s the real scum. They’re exploiting the most vulnerable and the most desperate.”

Immigration Depot promised to find migrant farm labor work and eventually permanent legal residency for immigrants who could come up with $550. The Orange County district attorney’s office has since charged that the promises were fraudulent.

“I told her I was too old to work the field and that they wouldn’t give me a job, and then she told me she would get me a job taking care of children,” Rosalva recalled of her first conversation with one of the Immigration Depot clerks.

“I was very happy when they told me I could get the papers that I needed. . . . I have been sad a lot. I want to see my children. . . . A grandmother wants to know about her grandchildren.”

Authorities say Rosalva faces little danger of being deported but she will remain an illegal immigrant, unable to work legally. She declined to discuss her son’s status.

Immigration Depot, according to authorities, is one in a string of companies that has been opened by Cervantes since the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it tougher for illegal immigrants to find work and remain in the United States.