Fake lawyer sentenced to 14 years in prison for deceiving migrants and border agents in smuggling operation

In Texas, a woman who tricked border officials into believing she was a lawyer providing aid to migrants was sentenced to 14 years in prison after investigators discovered she was orchestrating a smuggling operation of human beings, Justice Department officials announced Monday.

Kimberly Cruz, posing as an immigration lawyer, smuggled nearly 100 Mexican migrants through a border crossing in Eagle Pass, Texas. They paid him a total of nearly $275,000 for legal services to enable him to cross the border and reconnect with his family; the 35-year-old woman was also creating fraudulent documents that she used to deceive border officials, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas.

Cruz's scheme of misrepresenting himself to migrants and passing false documents to U.S. border agents is unusual in the world of human smuggling at the border, where typically “coyotes” smuggle people in by bypassing legal entry points or placing them on a truck. A coyote is the nickname given to someone who smuggles people across the border to get money.

Cruz was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud. She was ordered to forfeit $271,00 and pay $9,900 in restitution.

“The glaring thought that went through my mind was, 'How could anyone get away with this,'” Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Security Investigations Charles Kerby told USA TODAY interior at Eagle Pass. “But, ultimately, it depends on the desperation of the people she’s contracting with.” They will believe it to be true because their despair crushes that doubt.

“Have no doubt,” said Special Agent in Charge Craig Larrabee for San Antonio Homeland Security Investigations. “Individuals who pose as a lawyer to exploit others for their personal gain will be held accountable for their crimes. »

Cruz's attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

A scam at the border

Cruz orchestrated his scheme for most of 2019, according to court documents.

This involved Cruz collecting identity documents, including birth certificates, passports and ID cards, from Mexican nationals who thought she was a lawyer. She matched the photo ID to the valid immigration documents she had access to and sent the completed documents to border agents, per her plea agreement.

The documents allowed migrants to enter the country for only 24 to 48 hours for immigration appointments. But most didn't know because Cruz kept the documents, the guilty plea says.

Her scheme failed when a border agent spoke to the people she was helping cross and learned they thought they were going somewhere other than where their papers claimed they were going, the guilty plea says. She admitted the scheme to Homeland Security Investigations officials who interviewed her.

Kerby, who oversaw the investigation, recalled that border agents already sensed something was wrong.

She identified herself as a lawyer in emails to the deputy director of the Eagle Pass border crossing, but led border agents to believe she was a lawyer, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official. or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to court filings. .

“She was all over the place about who she was,” Kerby said.

Cruz was able to be so convincing because she previously worked at a law firm in an administrative capacity, according to Kerby.

“She learned the lingo, she learned how the system worked, and then she broke off on her own,” he said. “She used the contacts made while working in an official capacity to branch out into unofficial activities and it worked for her.”

Kerby had no immediate answer on what happened to the migrants involved. Court documents say Cruz left his victims with his family in the United States.

He said they could have avoided the scheme by verifying Cruz with the American Bar Association.

An unusual pattern

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is a border specialist at George Mason University who has studied smuggling networks for a decade.

She added that more and more people are falling for smugglers or seeking them out of desperation.

“It seems like business is doing very well, because with all the restrictions, with all this propaganda, with the election coming up, people think they can't do it alone,” she said. “The smugglers tell them. . . if you don't do it now, you may not be able to do it at any time.

It is not known exactly how many people are crossing the border illegally, as it is a very clandestine process, but data shows that the number of people charged with human trafficking offenses has increased significantly.

These charges include smuggling, transporting or harboring an illegal alien; trafficking of documents related to citizenship; and fraudulently acquire citizenship documents.

In fiscal year 2023, 5,237 people were charged with some or all of these crimes, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an increase of nearly 9% from 2022 and 15% from 2019. Immigration fell during the pandemic.

Cruz's plan, under which migrants would obtain official visas at the border crossing, was atypical, Correa-Cabrera said. Usually, coyotes drive people between points of entry or herd them into cars or 18-wheelers.

But it has all the usual characteristics of opportunists seeking to “take advantage of vulnerable and poorly informed migrants,” she said.

By transporting migrants across the border, smugglers appear to be successful in the eyes of their clients, the Virginia-based professor said. But ultimately, migrants receive no meaningful help because they will most likely end up as undocumented immigrants facing deportation and other problems.

“They will not be able to have their [immigration] the case was successfully decided and they are going to find themselves in very complicated situations,” she said. “These are things that are very unethical.”

Smuggling Facts

• Nearly a quarter of all immigration cases involved smuggling in fiscal year 2022, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The vast majority did not involve physical injury, although 40% involved risk of injury. Death occurred in less than 1%.

• The Department of Justice launched an initiative in 2021 with Homeland Security aimed at disrupting human trafficking networks, particularly those that endanger those smuggled, have ties to the organized crime or pose threats to national security. Joint Task Force Alpha's operations have led to more than 300 arrests, 240 convictions and more than 170 people convicted on human trafficking-related charges.

• A Mexican coyote was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June for his role as a foot guide in a smuggling operation in which a migrant died from heat exposure in the New Mexico desert, according to the Department of Justice.

• In California, a 28-year-old man was sentenced to more than five years in prison in June on charges related to drug distribution, money laundering and human trafficking, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Western District of Washington. Andre Jackson used social media to recruit drivers to smuggle people across the border.

• In a federal court in San Antonio, Texas, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a human trafficking operation. Sedrick Zelitis Smith, 47, acquired tractor-trailers for illicit trafficking and did part of the driving himself, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The trailers carried between 30 and 100 migrants.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fake lawyer sentenced to 14 years in prison for migrant smuggling at US-Mexico border