Mexico City — Latin American migrants making their difficult journey to the United States often fall prey to scams, in which thousands of dollars can be lost to fraudulent businesses that spread misinformation and prey on vulnerable people.
Scammers range from human traffickers – often called coyotes – to social media influencers, and many of them fraudulently pose as recruiters, legal consultants or immigration coaches.
Most fraudsters take advantage of the many loopholes in US immigration policy, tricking migrants into paying for bogus legal advice, work visas, political asylum or alternative methods of crossing the US-Mexico border.
Nearly a quarter of migrants surveyed earlier this month said they received messages offering immigration services and jobs, mainly through Facebook and WhatsApp. Two-thirds of the 210 surveyed said they had been victims of some form of fraud or disinformation. One migrant said he spent $1,500 on a form that turned out to be fake.
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Editor’s Note: This report was a collaboration between Verificado, Connexion Migrant, The Associated Press, Data-Pop Alliance and PolitiFact. It was produced with the support of the International Center for Journalism’s Disarming Disinformation Project, with primary funding from The Scripps Howard Foundation.
Research Team: Daniela Mendoza, Patricia Mercado, Julie Ricard, Abril Mulato, Gabriela Martínez, María Ramírez Uribe, Angelica Villegas, Anna Carolina Spinardi, Yvette Yanez and Ivonne Valdés.
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According to Mexico’s Interior Ministry, 5,684 complaints of crime against migrants were registered in Mexico from 2016 to November 2022. Of these, 1,849 were classified as illegal smuggling, 2,655 as theft and only eight as fraud.
Handling a fraud complaint is complicated. Migrants usually seek the help of an independent organization such as the Center for Migrant Rights, the non-profit El Otro Lado or a migrant shelter such as Cafemin. Migrants often continue to attempt to cross the border, and if they are successful, they drop their case.
As a result, misinformation and scams continue to flourish – and go unpunished, with scammers using social networks such as Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok to target migrants.
According to social media posts monitored during May and June and testimony collected from migrants in early June, the scams can cost migrants anywhere from $1 to $20,000 per person.
Mercedes Perez contacted Jaime Diaz Marquez via social media, who introduced himself as an employee of an American religious organization and promised to get her and 14 of her relatives political asylum in the US. Perez said he asked for $55 for each family member in exchange for being processed for parole, a temporary permit the US grants for urgent humanitarian reasons to allow immigrants to stay in the country without a visa for at least a year. Get permission.
In a Facebook Live broadcast, Diaz Marquez assured the family that they would be able to collect their papers and cross the border legally on December 9, 2022. He later deleted the videos and did not post them again. Mercedes said it lost $770 and received nothing in return.
She reported the alleged fraud to El Otro Lado, and was instructed to file a complaint with local authorities. Ultimately, he refused to do so for fear of retribution.
Diaz Marquez did not respond to multiple attempts seeking comment via telephone and WhatsApp.
El Otro Lado says migrants affected by scammers rarely report the fraud for fear of being deported or jeopardizing their entry into the US.
Evelyn Reyes, a Mexican native, said her husband paid about $2,000 and allegedly sent her passport to a man named Alberto, whom she contacted via Facebook. This money was to go for a visa for a round-trip flight and passport, which was to be delivered to her in Mexico City. But he lost the money and his passport.
Reyes said, “When he arrived, there was nothing there – just ghosts.”
Jorge Gallo, regional press officer for the UN’s International Organization for Migration, said that many migrants “go into huge debt to be able to pay for the services of these coyotes and in many cases they lose everything.”
Gallo says that coyotes sometimes leave migrants in the middle of the border crossing, putting them in danger and even putting their lives at risk.
Then there are social media influencers who provide legal services without being lawyers. Take Dario Andres, who advertises his services on TikTok and Instagram, where he has more than 500,000 followers.
On his Instagram profile, Jose Rafael Roman Argote, self-styled attorney and partner, offers advice to Florida immigrants. But a search of 50 bar associations across the United States reveals that none of them are registered.
Efforts to reach Andres and Argote through WhatsApp messages, TikTok, Instagram and calls went unanswered.
These types of online personalities share information about immigration procedures to entice their followers, in order to later sell them advice that is not always legally sound or even misinformation.
US policies change frequently, causing confusion among expatriates and creating opportunities for scammers. Title 42, which expired on May 11, denies asylum on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 but has been applied unevenly. And US officials created an opaque system of waivers that allowed select organizations to select people who qualified for waivers, but their names were not made public and their selection criteria were often a secret.
After Title 42, the main ways to enter the country are a mobile app called CBP One, which relies on a lottery of 1,250 slots daily at land crossings with Mexico, and 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month. depends on parole. who apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at the airport.
Mexico’s Migrant Rights Center says it has seen an increase in online migrant recruitment fraud since 2016, particularly through ads on Facebook. While the Center does not offer specific figures, a digital survey conducted among migrants indicates that 13% of the total respondents received false job offers.
A U.S. employer who wants to hire a seasonal migrant—for example, in agriculture—must have a temporary labor certification. Visa processing is referred to private agencies that search for workers.
Jocelyn Reyes, CDM’s director of promotion, education and leadership development, says that since the creation of the Temporary Work Arrangement between the United States and Mexico, the recruitment process for workers has been irregular, informal, poorly documented and opaque.
Reyes says recruitment agencies have been able to monopolize the process by accessing information about job opportunities in the US and by arranging H-2 visas, which allow workers to work temporarily in the US. allows.
According to the CDM, recruiters often charge migrants interested in accessing job opportunities, which is illegal.
Meanwhile, the Fraud Prevention Division of the US Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico, where the largest number of temporary agricultural work visas are processed, said their hotline has seen an increase in the number of messages reporting fraud since 2019. happened. 12% to 15%.
Some scammers present themselves as companies authorized to hire temporary workers in the United States. According to the Immigrant Rights Center, they may charge for a criminal background check, which is not required and which they never actually complete.
Samantha Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the Caffemin shelter in Mexico City that receives migrants from Latin America and Central America, says online misinformation leads many migrants to believe they need documents for safe passage to pass through the Mexican capital. Needed.
Laura Ortiz, originally from El Salvador, said she and others had paid an alleged lawyer $2,500 to arrange safe passage. In fact, he only needed to contact Mexican immigration officials.
“They took our money,” Ortiz said, adding that the scammers later “blocked us from WhatsApp.”
He said he did not report the scam for fear of going to jail and being deported.
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