Fraudulent Immigration 'Consultant' Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison
Shahrzad Eram Soleimanlou, of Falls Church, Va., was sentenced last week to 41 months in prison for defrauding her immigration clients of approximately $1 million from June 2000 through December 2005. She'll be required to pay $1 million in restitution.
Apparently Soleimanlou's scam involved lying to immigration applicants by telling them that money was required to establish something akin to a bond to demonstrate to officials that the applicants had the financial ability to support themselves and would not become a financial burden on society. She'd then steal the money and use it for her own purposes.
Hucksters and scam artists like Soleimanlou have traditionally been and, sadly continue to be, a real problem in the world of immigration law. Immigration laws are so complex and immigration clients are often so vulnerable that snake oil merchants like Soleimanlou have long exerted a corrosive and parasitic influence on the immigration system. Obviously they steal immigrants' money and they oftentimes destroy any legitimate claim to relief that might have once existed for an immigrant, but they also damage the reputation of legitimate, hard-working and ethical immigration lawyers. The more prosecutions of this nature the better for everyone. Hopefully the new Administration will make such prosecutions an enforcement priority.
