Word of the deal spread swiftly among Ecuadorean immigrants, along a robust grapevine from New York City out to Long Island and into Westchester County. In Peekskill, N.Y., a gas station worker named Henry León heard about it through a friend of his wife’s: The pastors of a storefront Pentecostal church in Corona, Queens, had the inside track on a special allotment of green cards the government had earmarked for church congregations.Overlook the New York Times' attempt to show how debased and abused the illegal aliens are. Instead concentrate on the fact that the two illegal aliens in this story had access to $16,000 with no problem. They likely don't pay taxes on their income. And, billions upon billions of such wages (untaxed) are sent back to their originating countries without issue.
Mr. León and his wife made the two-hour trip by train and subway to Corona to meet with one of the two pastors, Gregorio Gonzalez. He told them that all they had to do was to fill out a form and provide $8,000 each in cash and some personal identification documents, Mr. León recalled. The green cards would be ready in a month.
It seemed too good to be true. And it was, according to prosecutors in the Queens district attorney’s office.
Mr. León and his wife are among at least 120 illegal immigrants in the New York region, most of them Ecuadoreans, who the authorities say were defrauded out of a total of nearly $1 million by Mr. Gonzalez, 56, and two accomplices who were arrested in March and April. The authorities say it was one of the region’s largest cases of immigration fraud in recent years.
That's what pisses me off. I could care less if people in the country illegally fall for fraud schemes. In fact, I kind of hope they do. Poetic justice...
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