Alleged fraud puts immigrants in limbo
Dozens of lawyer’s worker petitions denied
Attorney John K. Dvorak was their passport to America.
Hundreds of immigrants desperately seeking legal residency poured into his Boston office, waiting for hours as the line curled out the door. In the Brazilian community, word had spread from cooks to bakers to seamstresses that Dvorak was the lawyer to know. They filled out piles of paperwork, paid thousands of dollars, and waited for green cards to arrive in the mail.
Now, eight years later, the US government has begun rejecting dozens of Dvorak’s clients, saying it found fraud, such as fake employment letters, in a significant number of cases, according to a copy of a rejection letter that lawyers say clients are receiving. The unexpected action is wreaking havoc from Maine to Cape Cod. Immigrants who plunked down hard-earned cash with high hopes of staying in America are now racing to other lawyers for help.
Those lawyers say dozens of immigrants with legitimate cases have been unfairly swept up in the federal government’s action.
As a result, lawyers say, hundreds of immigrants and their children now could be deported or have their families split up.
“I don’t know if he did wrong or not, but it’s not my fault,’’ said Carlos Cianflone, a 40-year-old baker and part-time videographer, who says he and his wife, Kelly, filed a bona-fide case but have been rejected, jeopardizing the future of their American-born son, who is autistic. “I paid for him to do the right thing.’’
Dvorak appeared visibly upset last week at his office across from North Station, but he declined a request for an interview. He has not been charged with a crime, according to the US attorney’s office, and as of Friday remained a lawyer in good standing in Massachusetts and in the federal immigration courts.
The uproar stems from a chaotic, four-month period in 2001, when the federal government temporarily allowed certain illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency through relatives or their employers.
Across the country, couples rushed to get married to sponsor spouses, while employees scrambled to apply through work.
Because the law was so complicated, and the deadline so tight, immigrants flooded lawyers’ offices to apply on time. To sponsor a worker, employers had to certify to the federal government that they had tried to recruit Americans for the jobs first, while workers had to produce letters from former employers back home who could vouch for their qualifications.
For many immigrants who spoke English as a second language, the word on the street was that Dvorak could help.
“People said he was the best lawyer,’’ said Bruno Mendes, a 32-year-old truck driver, sitting next to his wife, Thais da Silva, a cook whose application was rejected this month, at their kitchen table in North Andover. Over the past eight years, they have paid more than $10,000 in fees to the federal government and Dvorak to apply for legal residency.
Da Silva nodded.
“He was the guy,’’ she said, and her voice softened. “I think that was the biggest mistake.’’
The exact number of Dvorak’s clients who have been rejected is unknown.
David Santos, a spokesman with US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is rejecting the cases, declined to answer questions about the matter, citing confidentiality rules.
But in its rejection letters, the federal agency said Dvorak and his office submitted fraudulent information to support workers’ applications for legal status.
“Interviews of the beneficiaries [the immigrants] established that many of the beneficiaries were instructed by Attorney Dvorak and his associates to obtain fraudulent employment letters,’’ according to a June 2 letter from the agency. “Several interviews confirmed the law office obtained the fraudulent letters for the beneficiaries.’’
Lawyers who have taken over the cases of dozens of Dvorak’s former clients say many immigrants with legitimate cases are being punished only because Dvorak was their lawyer. They criticized the government for allowing the cases to drag on for years.
“This has really affected hundreds of families,’’ said William Joyce, an immigration lawyer and a former immigration judge who now represents 40 of Dvorak’s former clients, including Cianflone. “It’s a real mess. This whole thing is outrageous.’’
Ilana Greenstein, a lawyer who represents da Silva and Mendes, said she and a group of area lawyers also have about 30 to 40 of Dvorak’s former clients.
“They’ve been in line for nine years. They didn’t do anything fishy,’’ she said. “They were doing exactly what the government told them to do.’’
Clients are reaching out to politicians such as US Representative William Delahunt, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and state Senator Anthony Galluccio for help.
“This system is spending an inordinate amount of time on good people who have taken all steps properly and who have demonstrated for a great period of time that they are worthy of citizenship,’’ said Galluccio, who is trying to help da Silva.
In 2001, da Silva was thrilled when Marche Boston, a restaurant in the Prudential Center that closed in 2004, agreed to sponsor her for legal residency. Da Silva, a chef, had built a reputation for perfection, dabbing identical dollops of creme on each pastry she finished.
In 2002, the government approved Marche Boston’s application to sponsor her, a form called the I-140, clearing the way for da Silva to apply for a green card, or permanent resident status, in 2003. Typically a green card takes up to a year to approve.
But da Silva and Mendes have waited for six years. Daily, they check their mail and the federal agency’s website for updates on their case.
Every year, they renew their work permits.
As the years passed, they bought a condo in North Andover, which they chose for the schools, and had a baby, Noah, now 3 1/2.
Every few months they visited Citizenship and Immigration Services in Boston to inquire about their case.
Last year, a letter arrived from the government telling them it didn’t have a record of their application.
They began to worry that the system wasn’t working.
“Every day that passes by is just another day that you’re getting nowhere,’’ da Silva said. “It’s hopeless - that’s the only thing that you can say.’’
In February, they received a shock: Citizenship and Immigration Services notified them that the agency was planning to revoke its 2002 approval of Marche Boston’s application to sponsor da Silva.
The government’s letter did not accuse da Silva of fraud, but said fraud was discovered in Dvorak’s work.
In a panic, da Silva found a new lawyer, Greenstein, who sent an inch-thick rebuttal to Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying that da Silva had not committed fraud and asking that her new employer be able to sponsor her for legal residency.
The package included old help-wanted ads in Boston and letters from Brazil, where she made pizza, to show that her old application had been valid.
On June 2, the government revoked its approval of Marche Boston’s sponsorship, which da Silva is appealing.
Instead of sending the response to their new lawyer, the federal agency sent it to Dvorak.
The stress is taking a toll on the family: da Silva has started to grind her teeth. Mendes has headaches.
“You think you’re going to have a life here. You’re going to have a family. So you forget about Brazil,’’ said da Silva. “You have everything here and nothing there.’’
Similar upheavals are unfolding across the region.
Kelly Cianflone, whose husband, Carlos, is a distant cousin of da Silva’s, said 40 of their friends or neighbors are feeling the same fear and frustration.
“They’re all in this messy situation,’’ said Kelly Cianflone. “We were not expecting this. We were all expecting this green card in the mail. That’s what we were told that we were going to get.’’ 