Desde el 2020, según denuncias y reportes policiales en 14 estados, cientos de inmigrantes dicen haber sido víctimas de estafas relacionadas con los servicios de inmigración, perdiendo un monto total de al menos $800.000 dólares.

Formularios de inmigración. (ICE)

Cientos de miles de dólares han perdido los inmigrantes en los Estados Unidos por estafas en trámites migratorios realizados por notarios públicos y otros que dicen tener conexiones dentro de las agencias de migración del país, revela una investigación de South Side Weekly y Type Investigations.

Desde el 2020, según denuncias y reportes policiales en 14 estados, cientos de inmigrantes dicen haber sido víctimas de estafas relacionadas con los servicios de inmigración, perdiendo un monto total de al menos $800.000 dólares.

Muchas de las quejas vienen de negocios que se dedican a preparar impuestos o de los llamados notarios públicos, que se aprovechan de la gente que cree que quienes dirigen los servicios notariales son abogados —aunque no lo son—, y tergiversan los servicios que pueden ofrecer legalmente a los inmigrantes, y pasan a hablar sobre opciones de inmigración, cuando en realidad no tienen licencia para ofrecer asesoramiento legal.

Este tipo de fraude es bastante común, en parte porque mucha gente cree que los notarios en los Estados Unidos son abogados, como pasa en muchos países latinoamericanos, pero ese no es el caso.

En Nueva York, por ejemplo, los notarios públicos sólo pueden hacer cuatro cosas: autenticar documentos, traducir formularios, mecanografiar solicitudes y ayudar a reunir los documentos migratorios. 

Si bien los notarios son los más conocidos, no son los únicos culpables de las estafas. Hay otros que dicen que saben navegar el sistema migratorio y piden dinero. Envían recibos falsos y números de seguimiento que parecen del Servicio de Ciudadanía e Inmigración de los Estados Unidos, para que las estafas parezcan más reales.  

Desde el 2015, solo en Illinois, decenas de personas han denunciado que las estafaron con casos de inmigración ante el fiscal general del estado, alegando , con pérdidas que llegan casi a los $200.000 dólares.

Así que para hablar de estas estafas en servicios migratorios, invitamos a Alma Campos, reportera principal y editora de proyectos para la cobertura de temas de inmigración para South Side Weekly, y coautora del reportaje con Max Blaisdell.

Más detalles en nuestra conversación a continuación.

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By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A stray comet from another star swings past Earth this week in one last hurrah before racing back toward interstellar space.

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Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass within 167 million miles of our planet on Friday, the closest it gets on its grand tour of the solar system.

NASA continues to aim its space telescopes at the visiting ice ball, estimated to be between 1,444 feet and 3.5 miles in size. But it’s fading as it exits, so now’s the time for backyard astronomers to catch it in the night sky with their telescopes.

The comet will come much closer to Jupiter in March, zipping within 33 million miles. It will be the mid-2030s before it reaches interstellar space, never to return, said Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

It’s the third known interstellar object to cut through our solar system. Interstellar comets like 3I/Atlas originate in star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way, while home-grown comets like Halley’s hail from the icy fringes of our solar system.

A telescope in Hawaii discovered the first confirmed interstellar visitor in 2017. Two years later, an interstellar comet was spotted by a Crimean amateur astronomer. NASA’s sky-surveying Atlas telescope in Chile spotted comet 3I/Atlas in July while prowling for potentially dangerous asteroids.

Scientists believe the latest interloping comet, also harmless, may have originated in a star system much older than ours, making it a tantalizing target.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the appeal of a Black death row inmate from Mississippi whose case was handled by a prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons.

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A federal judge had previously overturned the murder conviction of the inmate, Terry Pitchford, but an appeals court reversed that ruling.

The justices stepped into the case involving the same prosecutor, former District Attorney Doug Evans, who was at the center of a high court case that resulted in a 2019 decision that overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers.

The case will be argued in the spring.

U.S District Judge Michael P. Mills held that the judge who oversaw Pitchford’s trial didn’t give the man’s lawyer enough chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases.

Pitchford was sentenced to death for his role in the 2004 killing of Reuben Britt, the owner of the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi.

In Pitchford’s case, judges and lawyers whittled down the original jury pool of 61 white and 35 Black members to a pool with 36 white and five Black members, in part because so many Black jurors objected to sentencing Pitchford to death. Then prosecutors struck four more Black jurors, leaving only one Black person on the final jury.

The Supreme Court tried to stamp out discrimination in the composition of juries in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. The court ruled then that jurors couldn’t be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Flowers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Evans had engaged in a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.”

Flowers was tried six times in the shooting deaths of four people. He was released from prison in 2019 and the state dropped the charges against him the following year, after Evans turned the case over to state officials.

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and TRÂN NGUYỄN

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fight over California’s new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip congressional House seats will go to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether the district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in elections.

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The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official steps to run in the 2026 election.

Voters approved California’s new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It’s designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. It was Newsom’s response to a Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.

The redistricting showdown between the nation’s two most populous states has spread nationally, with efforts aiming to determine which party controls Congress for the second half of Trump’s term. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have adopted new district lines that could provide a partisan advantage.

Some plans are facing legal challenges, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to allow Texas to use its new map for the 2026 election. The Justice Department has only sued California.

The U.S. Justice Department, joining a case brought by the California Republican Party, has accused California of gerrymandering its map in violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Hispanic voters. Republicans want the court to prohibit California from using the new map. Voters approved the map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. State Democrats said they’re confident the lawsuit will fail.

“In letting Texas use its gerrymandered maps, the Supreme Court noted that California’s maps, like Texas’s, were drawn for lawful reasons,” Newsom’s spokesperson Brandon Richards said in a statement. “That should be the beginning and the end of this Republican effort to silence the voters of California.”

New U.S. House maps are drawn across the country after the Census every 10 years. Some states like California rely on an independent commission to draw maps, while others like Texas let politicians draw them. The effort to create new maps in the middle of the decade is highly unusual.

Paul Mitchell, a redistricting consultant who drew the map for Democrats, is expected to offer testimony. The Justice Department alleges that Mitchell and state leaders admitted that they redrew some districts to have a Latino majority.

The lawsuit cites a news release from state Democrats that says the new map “retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters” while making no changes to Black majority districts in the Oakland and Los Angeles areas. The federal Voting Rights Act, passed in the 1960s, sets rules for drawing districts to ensure minority groups have adequate political power. The lawsuit also cites a Cal Poly Pomona and Caltech study that concludes the new map would increase Latino voting power.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the lawsuit said.

House Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, which would imperil Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans hold 219 seats, to Democrats’ 214.

Nguyễn reported from Sacramento.