Laura Luz Maria Torres pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy on December 28, 2020, in Palm Beach, Florida, for her involvement in a multilayered scheme to defraud the United States Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS) and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Torres is indicted with three charges, including one count of conspiracy to commit immigration and mail fraud; one count to steal and launder government money; and one count of false statements to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food assistance program, also known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Her three-pronged $4 million scheme often took advantage of immigrants who had entered the U.S illegally, had little to no education, did not understand English, and did not understand how the U.S. immigration system worked.

Beginning in at least 2012, Torres initiated the first prong of her scheme by opening, owning, and operating a business “which provided immigration and other services to the public” through its multiple locations in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach, Florida. Torres represented herself to new clients through word-of-mouth “as an experienced immigration document preparer” and promised to establish a client’s legal status in the United States.

Torres, with the assistance of co-conspirators employed at her company, obtained necessary background information on the clients while preparing false and fraudulent asylum applications without the client’s knowledge. Investigations found that Torres never asked if they suffered persecution in their home countries, which is a required element to prove eligibility for asylum status within the United States. Instead, she “made up false and fictitious narratives of persecution” in which “most of the applications contained similar, and at times identical stories of persecution.”

Torres and her co-conspirators gave the clients either the signature page of a blank application, or they would forge the names of the clients onto the asylum applications. She also “never completed or signed the preparer section of the asylum application” to conceal her role in the scheme to defraud the United States Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS). The clients did not know Torres had applied for asylum benefits on their behalf until Torres prepped the clients for their asylum interviews, in which she instructed them to memorize the information on the application; otherwise, they would be deported.

If an asylum case is pending for more than 150 days, then the individual claiming asylum has the opportunity to apply for an Employment Authorization Card, which is a work permit to legally work in the United States. Without contacting her clients, Torres filled out these forms by forging her clients’ names onto the paperwork and listing one of her offices as the mailing address. When the work permits would arrive, she threatened to return the permits to USCIS if the clients did not pay an additional fee. She told her clients that a return of the work permit “would result in the client’s arrest and deportation.”

Torres charged up-front cash fees for her services, which would range anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000, for the initial application alone. The application for asylum in the United States, unlike other forms with the USCIS, is free. Throughout this prong of the scheme, Torres collected more than $2 million in cash fees from approximately 1,000 “false and fraudulent asylum and authorization applications.”

The second part of Torres’ scheme involved collecting and maintaining enough personally identifiable information of her clients to file fraudulent tax returns in which she expected “significant refunds” without the knowledge of the clients. Each return “included one or more materially false statements including… fictitious dependents, false childcare and earned income credits,” to qualify for refunds from the U.S Internal Revenue Service (IRS). To further justify the claims, Torres would also attach “fake leases, fake childcare receipts, and fake business receipts” to the applications.

From as early as 2011 through April 2019, “Torres filed over 200 false tax returns with the IRS, seeking fraudulent refunds totaling approximately $1.8 million.” In the early days of the scheme, Torres “directed the IRS to direct deposit the fraudulent refunds into a TD bank account, which Torres opened using a stolen identity.” Later on, she would have the IRS mail the checks to the home addresses listed on the returns, which “were in fact properties owned, and/or controlled by Torres.” To continue to conceal her involvement in the “receipt and control over the refund checks,” Torres employed a “co-conspirator attorney in California” to “launder the refund checks through her attorney trust account, in return for a 10 percent fee.”

And finally, for the last prong of the scheme, from as early as 2008, Torres applied for benefits from SNAP through the United States Department of Agriculture. To continue to be eligible, an individual must recertify their status every year. To do this, “Torres knowingly and willfully made numerous materially false statements” such as her real name and U.S. citizenship. From 2008 through 2020, Torres received approximately $67,000 in SNAP benefits.

Just last month, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security published a final rule expediting the procedures for asylum and withholding removal. The finalized rule allows immigration judges to “paper adjudicate” claims of asylum and refuse hearings for cases that have not proven their merit or seem baseless. Additionally, the DOJ also finalized a rule in December 2020 to restrict immigration appeals for those in this category, making it even more difficult for immigrants wishing to claim asylum status in the United States.

Torres faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison at her hearing which is scheduled for March 21, 2021, in West Palm Beach, Florida, before the Honorable U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra.