HUMAN TRAFFICKING WATCH · DISPATCH
Licenses Surrendered, Lives Disrupted
A Washington immigration practice collapsed under fraud claims, leaving tens of thousands of cases in limbo.
After a Washington immigration firm closed and its attorney surrendered her license, investigations widened and former clients scrambled for help as tens of thousands of cases faced new scrutiny.
On June 10, 2026, the immigration firm Luz del Camino Legal closed and its principal, Alexandra Lozano, permanently surrendered her Washington license rather than contest bar discipline, a pivot that sent clients and courts searching for files and answers in cases that reached from Tukwila to Tenino. The Washington State Bar Association said Lozano’s signature appeared on more than 53,000 pending immigration matters nationwide, a volume that ensured the collapse would ripple through adjudications for months, if not years. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed that its fraud unit had opened an investigation, while the Department of Homeland Security declined public comment, a silence that underscored both the stakes and the sensitivity. Lawsuits and an ethics probe alleged that false narratives of domestic abuse and human trafficking were used to obtain humanitarian relief without some clients’ knowledge, allegations Lozano denied through counsel even as the firm ceased operations. What remained, in court dockets and kitchen drawers, were receipts, notices, and work permits linked to petitions now subject to new scrutiny, the bureaucratic aftermath of a high-volume practice abruptly gone dark (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Former clients described payments that strained families and produced consequences they said they never anticipated, including removal proceedings and prolonged uncertainty. Gabriel Martinez Garcia recounted that his family paid $30,000 to the firm, only to see his mother placed into deportation proceedings as filings drew scrutiny; others told similar stories of savings drained and status jeopardized. Erika Sanchez said she and her husband paid more than $32,000, and that the application submitted in her husband’s name was never shown to them; in some accounts, clients said they had been asked to sign blank pages, a practice they later came to distrust. Many struggled, after the shutdown, to retrieve complete files or even determine exactly what had been submitted on their behalf, turning to volunteer attorneys in Washington and Oregon for triage. Each detail came layered with the stress of deadlines, address updates, and interviews scheduled without clarity about the contents of the underlying record, a process that can punish delay as surely as it penalizes deception (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Inside the operation, a former employee working in Colombia described practices that, if proven, would explain how so many cases moved so quickly across borders and desks. Rafael Alvarez, who said he worked from 2022 to 2024, alleged that staff were instructed to invent abuse details for some petitions, and that workers in Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina provided legal advice despite not being licensed in the United States. Plaintiffs echoed that description in court filings, alleging a system that relied on templated narratives and aggressive intake, where quick work permits were often followed by steep hurdles at the stage when permanent residency demands more corroboration. Nora Murillo Moreno said she discovered alleged fabricated abuse claims on the eve of a green card interview, a point when surprises tend to carry heavy costs. The allegations, if borne out, place unlicensed practice and the manufacturing of testimony at the core of a scheme that used humanitarian categories designed to protect victims of domestic violence and trafficking as a conveyor belt, not a shield (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Financial incentives extended beyond client fees, according to sworn testimony and subsequent litigation that mapped revenue streams as carefully as it mapped harm. Former chief operating officer Amy Rios testified in 2024 that the firm earned $1.7 million by teaching other practices how to navigate humanitarian visa categories, an enterprise that, plaintiffs allege, exported tactics as well as templates. Recent lawsuits in Texas and Ohio accused at least two additional firms of replicating the strategies attributed to Luz del Camino Legal, allegations those firms denied in court filings and public statements. In Washington, attorney Vicente Omar Barraza filed a malpractice action on behalf of former clients seeking their files and compensation, efforts that now run in parallel with federal fraud inquiries and bar proceedings. The combined litigation suggested not a single failure point but a networked set of incentives and practices, tested in one office and traveling to others, that turned vulnerable clients into volume (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Lozano’s legal team countered that clients were expected to review applications before signing, a baseline defense presented by her attorney, Angelo Calfo, that sat uncomfortably alongside accounts from former clients who said they never saw the filings sent in their names. The bar’s disciplinary arc added its own complication: an earlier ethics complaint was dismissed in 2023, before the association later moved to block Lozano from practicing, a sequence that critics said delayed accountability and the firm’s supporters framed as due process. Bar spokesperson Sara Niegowski said the association acted as quickly as possible once the record was sufficient, while Lozano’s permanent surrender of her license closed the disciplinary case without factual findings. The result is a public ledger that records a shutdown and an exit, but not resolution on the underlying allegations, leaving courts and clients to fight the next rounds in civil suits and immigration interviews rather than bar hearings (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
On the ground, the fallout accumulated in lines outside legal clinics and community centers, where volunteer attorneys in Washington and Oregon scheduled rapid consultations to review notices, redact misinformation, and stabilize addresses for mail delivery. Erika Gonzalez, an advocate in the anti-trafficking space, described the scale as overwhelming and warned that the system’s capacity to triage would be tested for months as families tried to reconcile filings with facts. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance to former clients on how to withdraw applications or update contact information so processing could continue in a more accurate posture, a necessary but insufficient step for those already in proceedings. For many, the question became less who to trust and more how to keep a viable case alive while federal investigators and civil courts charted accountability (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Even as investigators examined specific files, policymakers recalibrated the rules governing one of the main relief categories implicated by the allegations, announcing changes that would narrow definitions of abuse and place more weight on evidence submitted by alleged abusers. In December, immigration authorities cited a surge in applications and fraud concerns as they outlined an overhaul of the domestic-violence-related visa program, changes that advocates feared could complicate life for genuine victims who already struggled to document harm. Cecelia Levin of the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors argued that constricting eligibility was the wrong response and urged a focused enforcement posture aimed at attorneys and firms suspected of running scams rather than the survivors who sought help in good faith. The recalibration thus arrived as both policy and warning, a signal that individual misconduct can bend the arc of protection for everyone (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
The broader context pointed to a marketplace of immigration services where fraud had grown more visible, with Federal Trade Commission data showing at least 920 such scams reported in 2025, a sharp increase that tracked the surge in humanitarian filings. The USCIS fraud unit’s ongoing investigation into the Lozano matters sat within that larger trend, while DHS withheld comment, leaving public understanding to be built case by case in court and at agency windows. Communities across the United States, including in Texas and Ohio where related lawsuits surfaced, watched families weigh whether to amend, withdraw, or press forward with applications bearing a tainted signature. If you or someone you know may be experiencing trafficking, contact the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733 for confidential help, any time (Press, n.d.; Los Angeles Times, n.d.).
Locations: Tenino, Tukwila, Washington state, Oregon, Texas, Ohio, United States, Colombia
Tags: investigation, policy, federal, state, survivor