Immigration lawyers slam scammers stealing their identities and offering fraudulent services

Immigration attorneys are having to take down sites and social media channels as scammers use AI, deepfakes and cloned domains to impersonate them and scam clients.

Immigration attorney Angel Leal Jr.’s face changes when he talks about how his life has changed since he became a victim of identity theft.

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“I don’t have enough words to describe these subhuman people, because that’s what they are. They take advantage of other people’s needs, understanding that there is fear in the community, understanding that people are scared,” says Leal, who practices immigration law in Doral, Florida, and whose image and name and even his voice have been cloned with artificial intelligence to deceive desperate immigrants seeking to regularize their status.

That’s what hurts him the most, he says with indignation — the harm done to his Hispanic community — because the scammers aren’t targeting just him.