Insurgent citizenship: how consumer complaints on immigration scams inform justice and prevention efforts

• Author: Juan Manuel Pedroza/Anne Schaufele/Viviana Jimenez/Melissa Garcia Carrillo/Dennise Onchi-Molin
• Position: Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz/Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence & Visiting Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic, American University Washington College of Law/Building Belonging Undergraduate Research Fellows, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Pages: 369-400

ARTICLES

INSURGENT CITIZENSHIP: HOW CONSUMER

COMPLAINTS ON IMMIGRATION SCAMS

INFORM JUSTICE AND PREVENTION EFFORTS

JUAN MANUEL PEDROZA, ANNE SCHAUFELE, VIVIANA JIMENEZ,

MELISSA GARCIA CARRILLO, AND DENNISE ONCHI- MOLIN*

ABSTRACT

Immigration scams in the United States target noncitizens. Noncitizens

who have limited or no access to a clear path to adjust their legal status,

coupled with a shortage of affordable legal services and an access to justice

crisis

1

have created the perfect terrain for profit-oriented fraudsters who

thrive in moments of uncertainty. In those instances when vulnerable and

marginalized noncitizens are taken advantage of and report consumer

crimes, they attempt to turn rights in law into rights in practice. In this paper,

we examine noncitizens’ descriptions of particular scams and suggest ways

to apply this analysis of victims’ claims to a framework for social change. We

rely on qualitative evidence from coding a sample of 1,040 consumer com-

plaints submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) between 2011 and

* Juan Manuel Pedroza, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, University of California, Santa

Cruz.

Anne Schaufele, Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence & Visiting Director, Immigrant Justice

Clinic, American University Washington College of Law.

Viviana Jimenez, Melissa Garcia Carrillo, and Dennise Onchi-Molin, Building Belonging

Undergraduate Research Fellows, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Authors acknowledge valuable feedback from Rene

´ D. Flores, Yossi Harpaz, Ernesto Castaneda, Ali R

Chaudhary, Koji Chavez, Tristan Ivory, Christof Brandtner, Toma

´s Jime

´nez, Michael Rosenfeld, Cybelle

Fox, Irene Bloemraad, Felicia Arriaga, Austin Kocher, Daniel Stageman, Jamie Longazel, attendees at

the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association, participants at the Access to Justice Roundtable

at Fordham Law School’s Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, and the sociology department at the

University of California, Berkeley. Halle Price & Sarah Cossman (American University Washington

College of Law) provided research assistance. The usual disclaimers apply. © 2023, Juan Manuel

Pedroza, Anne Schaufele, Viviana Jimenez, Melissa Garcia Carrillo, and Dennise Onchi-Molin.

1. The access to justice crisis refers to gaps in the availability of legal aid services among disadvan-

taged segments of the general public.

369

2015. The narrative evidence includes both first-person accounts and

descriptions of a scam from organizational intermediaries and witnesses. We

examine efforts by noncitizens and their allies to seek access to justice, which

allows us to answer the following questions: what do individuals choose to

emphasize when reporting scams to consumer protection authorities?

Relatedly, what can we learn about immigrant rights-claiming by focusing on

the types of narratives people choose to relay as a means of seeking access to

justice? We argue that scam reports offer important insights into possible sol-

utions to enact social change and to ensure these preventable scams are

addressed. Consumer protections for noncitizens targeted by immigration

scams can function as a rallying point for immigrants’ rights more broadly.

Addressing obstacles to accessing justice for noncitizens targeted by immigra-

tion scams requires us to acknowledge the unique risk immigrants face in

exposing their legal status and the lack of guaranteed representation in immi-

gration proceedings. We also discuss tangible solutions that echo immigrants’

own demands for consumer and civil rights, including examples from past cases

and efforts to stop scams. The current study has broader implications given that

reporting consumer fraud can be a flashpoint for noncitizens’ civic engagement

and an insurgent citizenship (i.e., actions by immigrants and advocates that

expand our notions of who participates in civic engagement) with the potential

to reconceptualize rights traditionally associated with citizenship.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................... 371

I. BACKGROUND ON IMMIGRANT RIGHTS-CLAIMING .............. 374

II. IMMIGRATION SCAM REPORTS IN THE FTC’S CONSUMER

COMPLAINTS DATABASE .............................. 376

A. Narrative Study Design .......................... 378

B. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

1. Immigrant Rights-Claiming as Consumer Rights-

Claiming ................................. 380

2. Rights Beyond Refunds ...................... 382

3. A Bridge between Market and Rights Logics . . . . . . . 386

III. DISCUSSION ....................................... 388

A. Consumer Protection and Refunds .................. 389

B. Access to Justice via Legal and Social Services......... 391

370 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 37:369

C. Immigration Relief for Consumer Crime Victims ........ 395

D. Insurgent Citizenship and Immigrant Rights. . . . . . . . . . . 398

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

INTRODUCTION

Noncitizens navigating the market for legal services must contend with

limited pathways to legalization. To begin, they may have temporary, condi-

tional, or no legal authorization to live and work in the United States.

Complicating matters further, the uneven location of experienced legal serv-

ice providers across the nation fuels an unmet demand for trustworthy legal

aid and legal representation. Scam artists can then make a profit by targeting

noncitizens who are in need of assistance. A well-known scheme involves

individuals presenting themselves as experienced lawyers and legal profes-

sionals.

2

Scammers target Latin American and Caribbean immigrants by

exploiting a false cognate: in Spanish, “notario” signifies an experienced

lawyer and Spanish-speaking immigrants may believe they can seek legal

advice from the presumed English translation, a “notary.”

3

In the United

States, notaries, paralegals, and others regularly provide valuable administra-

tive services,

4

but scammers pose as legal service providers and mislead

immigrants into believing they can provide legal representation too.

5

2. Anne E. Langford, What’s in a Name: Notarios in the United States and the Exploitation of a

Vulnerable Latino Immigrant Population, 7 HARV. LATINO L. REV. 115, 119–23 (2004) (explaining the

concept of notario fraud).

3. Id.; see also Mary Dolores Guerra, Lost in Translation: Notario Fraud, Immigration Fraud, 26

J. C.R. & ECON. DEV. 23 (2011); Bianca Carvajal, Combatting California’s Notario Fraud, 35 CHICANX-

LATINX L. REV. 1 (2017).

4. Accounts of the valuable work that paralegals, legal assistants, and notarios have provided for cli-

ents seeking immigration benefits, especially following the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

of 1986, can be found in ethnographic and public policy analyses. See SUSAN GONZALEZ BAKER, THE

CAUTIOUS WELCOME: THE LEGALIZATION PROGRAMS OF THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT

62–64 (1990) (mentioning the role that notarios played after immigration authorities introduced a “quali-

fied designated entity” status for public sector entities, community-based organizations, and individual

“entrepreneurs”); SUSAN BIBLER COUTIN, LEGALIZING MOVES: SALVADORAN IMMIGRANTS’ STRUGGLE

FOR U.S. RESIDENCY 63–70 (2003) (describing cases where undocumented immigrants sought informal

notary services with accounts of immigrants who mention benefiting from such services); JACQUELINE

HAGAN, DECIDING TO BE LEGAL: A MAYA COMMUNITY IN HOUSTON 89–90 (1994) (explaining that nota-

rio services can proliferate rapidly after new avenues open up to apply for immigration benefits); Beenish

Riaz, Envisioning Community Paralegals in the United States: Beginning to Fix the Broken Immigration

System, 45 N.Y.U. REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE 82, 119–21 (2021) (showing a summary of proposals to bring

“semi-professionals” into the fold of U.S. institutions recognized by the federal government).

5. Several socio-legal analyses have documented the longstanding problems associated with immi-

gration scams, especially those involving notarios and other consultants who mislead or mishandle cli-

ents’ immigration cases. See Robert L. Bach, Building Community Among Diversity: Legal Services for

Impoverished Immigrants, 27 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 639 (1993); Lori Adams & Alida Y. Lasker,

Innovative Approaches to Immigrant Representation: Exploring New Partnerships, 33 CARDOZO L. REV.

417 (2011); Milagros Cisneros, H.B. 2659: Notorious Notaries-How Arizona is Curbing Notario Fraud in

the Immigrant Community, 32 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 287 (2000); Hector Cordero-Guzma

´n, Nina Martin, Victoria

Quiroz-Becerra & Nik Theodore, Voting with Their Feet: Nonprofit Organizations and Immigrant

Mobilization, 52 AM. BEHAV. SCIENTIST 598 (2008); Guerra, supra note 3; Langford, supra note 2; Julia

Marlowe & Jorge H. Atiles, Consumer Fraud and Latino Immigrant Consumers in the United States, 29

2023] INSURGENT CITIZENSHIP 371