A Queens, New York immigration lawyer was charged with fraud in federal court Wednesday, accused of knowingly submitting false documentation for more than 180 of her asylum-seeking clients.
“Andreea Dumitru, an immigration attorney, is alleged to have submitted fraudulent forms for over 180 clients, each containing statements and representations she knew to be false. She now faces prison time for her alleged crimes,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, the chief federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
According to the eight page indictment, Andreea Dumitru Parcalaboiu would deliberately create asylum applications for her clients riddled with falsehoods. She would lie about their criminal history, their “personal narratives of alleged persecution,” even where they were from. Then she would illegally sign the applications for them, swearing she had seen the applicants fill out the forms themselves. The scheme is alleged to have run from at least from 2012 until 2017.
Dumitru’s case is the second high profile federal prosecution of allegedly crooked immigration lawyers since Attorney General Jeff Sessions called out, “Dirty immigration lawyers who are encouraging their otherwise unlawfully present clients to make false claims of asylum providing them with the magic words needed to trigger the credible fear process” last October.
At the time, Sessions made reference to at least eight immigration attorneys facing federal fraud charges from Berman’s U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Since then, Joel Paul, another immigration attorney in Indiana, pleaded guilty in November to massive U and T-Visa fraud. Designed to help victims of crime and “human trafficking,” these programs are very similar to the asylum system in that they are designed to provide relief on humanitarian grounds. Paul was sentenced to six years in prison this month.
The immigration bar in the United States is a well-organized professional sector that routinely uses the liberal press to spread sob stories involving their often illegal alien clients. Groups like the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) also incessantly lobby for a broad open-borders agenda at the state and federal level. AILA and other left-wing groups also train lawyers in how best to frustrate President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Some AILA members, like frequent contributor Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, lead campaigns of their own to shield as many illegal aliens as possible from deportation.
On her website, Dumitru claimed to also be a member of AILA. Her website also specifically offers assistance in getting waivers for clients ineligible to stay in the United States “for reasons such as criminal convictions or immigration fraud.” AILA did not respond to Breitbart News’s request for comment on the indictment.
Fraudulent asylum claims, Attorney General Sessions said in October, put America’s “generous asylum policy” at risk. “[T]his system is currently subject to rampant abuse and fraud. And as this system becomes overloaded with fake claims, it cannot deal effectively with just claims,” he said.
In reference to this case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Agent-in-Charge Angel Melendez, who headed the investigation that led to Dumitru’s indictment, explained, “There are people who enter this country with valid asylum claims, waiting in line among all the frauds. Now, Dumitru will enter a courtroom as a defendant to face the consequences for her acts.”
Dumitru’s attorney told Breitbart News that his client denies all charges and made no further comment on the case. Dumitru faces up to 15 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts.