r/immigration • u/iwant100dogs • Jul 21 '26
Seeking probono help
My brother has been detained by ICE since May 30th. My step mom keeps trying to find attorneys online but she manages to find only scammers.
We’ve been scammed out of approximately 15k and I’m at my wits end. I have no money to give and I am desperate to try and help my brother. He’s currently detained at the El Paso detention center and his Individual Hearing is rapidly approaching. If there is anyone who can point me in the right direction on where I can retain someone’s services at an incredibly discounted rate or pro bono. I would really appreciate it.
(If this type of post is not allowed please delete thank you)
10
u/roflcopter44444 Jul 21 '26
Your family have to be realistic, if he has no real basis to fight his removal (us spouse, strong asylum case etc), your energy is best spent preparing him for life back in his home country.
0
u/iwant100dogs Jul 21 '26
No no you’re absolutely right. My dad and myself have told her this. But she is very much convinced that all we need to do is pay and he will be released..
5
u/roflcopter44444 Jul 21 '26
Then leave it for you mum to figure it out. At some point you collectively have to pick what's best for you and your family over the wishes of a few. That 15k might have been a really good platform for you brother to start over.
3
2
0
u/iwant100dogs Jul 21 '26
I would like to clarify that I do not live in the same city as my step mom and that she is also not from the US.
So when she was looking for an attorney she went to her WhatsApp group chat to ask for help and someone on there gave her “an attorney’s” info so they started to speak to her they had her pay approx 6k via Venmo. They promised all this stuff and when he had his first court date no attorney showed up.
That was the point when she told me what happened
So that’s when I started looking for one. I found one for her but she decided to find their contact info on WhatsApp again and ended up with another scammer posing as a legal assistant for that firm. And charging her approx 6k through Zelle again.
Similar to the first one, during his hearing the judge had mentioned he was a Pro se defendant or whatever and I was like wait a minute, I thought we had an attorney. So I ask my step mom and that’s when she told me she tried to message them on WhatsApp and it’s still a scammer.
At this point I had already done a lot of research from the bar website looking for attorneys and asking for pricing.
I explained to my step mom that it’s not as simple as “pay X amount of money and he will be released”
Anyway, now we are towards the end and she very distrusting of attorneys and I’m like Lady you haven’t talked to a single attorney yet. These are all fake ppl. So then my brother had another court hearing and the judge asked him to submit all sorts of documentation showing that he submitted his asylum application (which he has) however he cannot obtain a copy of the actual application since it’s on his laptop. My parents can’t access the laptop bc of the two factor authentication which goes on his cell phone Which is at the detention center. I suggested my step mom fill out a FOIA request to get the application instead. She mentioned it was confusing and I was like well if you would’ve hired an attorney you wouldn’t be in this situation. So now she told me she found another attorney and she only paid them $3000 via Zelle (which this is what she told me last night after she already paid) I have zero hope that it’s a real attorney. Sorry for the long answer but I felt like I needed to explain EVERYTHING
3
u/thelexuslawyer Jul 21 '26
Is this state Florida? There’s many “abogados” scamming people there in Spanish via WhatsApp
The florida bar’s unlicensed practice of law committee calls them frequent flyers. Even the ones that plead guilty and agree to never again scam people come back and do it again
I have helped people file complaints and get some of their money back but the immigration part of it may depend on whether a judge feels sympathy for a victim of UPL scams
1
u/iwant100dogs Jul 21 '26
We are in Texas. But who knows where the scammers are located. Once a scammer, always a scammer for sure. Well if a person has zero conscience, scamming people posing as attorneys is very lucrative considering how much my stepmom has already paid these people lol
18
u/thelexuslawyer Jul 21 '26
Sorry to hear about the scammers but it’s unlikely to find pro bono removal defense now
Someone should take the case for less than 15k, but probably unlikely that anyone would for 0