Farmworker's nightmare scam experience underscores dangers immigrants in US face seeking legal help

The briefing

Salvador Ramirez Arevalos, an orchard worker in the Wenatchee area on an H-2A visa, lost about $18,000 to a man posing as an immigration attorney who staged a fake court hearing on Google Meet complete with an actor in a judge's robe. Immigration lawyers who reviewed the recording called the notices "utterly fake" and noted that real hearings run in English on Webex, not in Spanish on Google Meet. The FTC received 2,000 such complaints last year, twice the prior average, with immigrants reporting $94 million in losses over five years.