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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Natalia Nunez Barragan, Senior Manager of Membership and Capacity Building at Immigrant ARC, on Immigration Services Fraud
2:20:02
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4 min
Natalia Nunez Barragan from Immigrant ARC testified on the issue of immigration services fraud and its impact on immigrant communities in New York. She highlighted the current challenges faced by immigrants and provided recommendations to combat fraud.
- Described the current political climate that makes immigrants vulnerable to fraud
- Shared an example of notary fraud experienced by Immigrant ARC clients
- Recommended expanding community resources for education and increasing public funding for legal representation
- Highlighted Immigrant ARC's involvement in the PINI task force to strengthen enforcement against unauthorized practice of immigration law
Natalia Nunez Barragan
2:20:02
Good man good morning good afternoon.
2:20:04
I'm sorry.
2:20:05
Members of the council.
2:20:07
My name is Natalia Nunez Baraglan.
2:20:08
I'm the senior manager of membership and capacity building at Immigrant Arc.
2:20:13
Immigrant Arc is a coalition of over 80 legal services providers delivering service across the New York state.
2:20:21
Our mission is to increase access to legal justice and legal counsel for immigrants New Yorkers by mobilizing legal service provider and addressing systemic barriers to justice.
2:20:34
Immigrant Arc allows the New York City Council's work to combat immigration services fraud, whereby unscrupulous individuals who are neither licensed attorneys or accredited representative.
2:20:46
This prey sorry.
2:20:49
This prey upon those needing legitimals legal services by misrepresenting the natural service they are qualified to provide.
2:20:59
Today, our immigrant communities are under unprecedented attack.
2:21:03
Trades that weaken both our cities and its economy.
2:21:06
We have witnessed indiscriminate enforcement, illegal detentions, and racial profiling with arbitrary quotas that mandating that the US immigration and custom enforcement, ICE, officers make 75 enforcements arrest per day.
2:21:23
President Trump has ordered immigration authorities to detain individuals, end quote, to the fullest extent possible.
2:21:31
This significantly increased the number of people held in ICE and custom and border protection.
2:21:38
These facilities that government experts and federal courts has previous previously deemed as barbaric and unconstitution unconstitutional.
2:21:50
All these creates conditions that are ripe for the proliferation of immigration service fraud.
2:21:57
IAC members see the consequence of notary frauds firsthand, and I'm bringing an example of one of our members.
2:22:04
The illegal project is currently serving two clients who has previous came by a man named Fernando Aguilar, who has charged these two victims around $6,000 and $13,000 just to file an asylum application with a scheme that brings bio biometrics appointments and a genuine letter that they from the US Department of Homeland Security.
2:22:34
All these examples demonstrate the kind of fraud that victims might face at this moment.
2:22:39
Our recommendation from IARC, and you can see it more in the submission of the testimony, we want to expand and promote community resources for education.
2:22:50
I think that's the first thing that we need to promote education from all our services providers.
2:22:57
Pages like immigrant help New York, that we have a different language access and community face and know your rights on how to introduce when ICE attentions comes to you.
2:23:13
The ABA's Commission of Immigration has stated a fight notarious fraud and fight notarious fraud as does the American Immigration Lawyers Association that I also cited on the document.
2:23:27
We also want to expand public funding for legal representation because this is the bare minimum that we could do for our immigrants in New York, expand and have free access to legal representation.
2:23:40
I also I also want to know that immigrant ARC is part of protecting immigrant New Yorkers, known as a tin PINI force PINI task force, which has which was created in 2013 and strengthened the enforcements against unnaturalized practice of immigration law and is led by NYC, New York State Attorney General Office, District Attorney's Offices, Local Government Consumer Affairs Department, and different federal agencies.
2:24:09
We invite other organizations to join and keep this initiative alive in this moment that we need it more than ever.
2:24:16
Thank you so much.