Aiexpress – Attorney Kofi Amankwaa and his son, Kofi Jr., have been accused of filing false petitions to the federal government instead of genuinely expediting their clients’ bids for legal U.S. residency. According to authorities, they claimed that the immigrants’ children had abused them.
According to them, this action merely drew attention from immigration officials to the applicants, resulting in some cases of green card denials and even deportations.
The victims had to pay approximately $6,000 each, along with an extra $1,225 in fees to be paid to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Additionally, they had to spend $325 for a mandatory medical examination.
According to defense attorneys, some of the children faced domestic abuse charges as a result.
On Monday, January 22, Williams and Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Alfonso of the Newark Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations in New Jersey, made a joint announcement about the arrests.
The Amankwaas have been sued by the New York State Attorney General Letitia James, as she announced recently.
According to the federal prosecutor, Williams, the scheme revolved around the submission of fraudulent petitions under the federal Violence Against Women Act. These petitions were filed by individuals seeking legal status in the United States.
Undocumented parents of abusive U.S. citizen children have the opportunity to self-petition for a green card through the I-360 petition.
Attorneys representing the victims reported that numerous fraudulent petitions submitted by the Amankwaas were rejected. To make matters worse, some of the applicants who filed these petitions ended up becoming the subjects of investigations themselves.
According to a joint release by Williams and Alfonso, the senior Amankwaa and his son, who worked as a legal assistant in his office near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, had been engaged in their dispute for over seven years.
According to the release, the men utilized the filing of the I-360 form and other petitions as a means to request advance parole travel documents for their clients. These documents allow individuals without legal status in the United States to temporarily travel abroad and return.
According to the report, the defendants instructed their clients to travel abroad and then return to the United States after obtaining the advance parole travel documents.
They also used the fraudulently obtained advance parole as a basis for their clients to apply for lawful permanent resident status.
According to Williams and Alfonso, the defendants knowingly engaged in an illegal scheme without verifying whether their clients’ children had actually abused them or even bothering to inquire about any instances of abuse.
The officials detected the fraud and rejected the majority of the applications, they reported.
In November, Awankwaa faced a suspension of his law license in New York due to a surge of complaints, according to authorities.
Monday’s announcements were soon to follow.
Both individuals are facing charges of conspiring to defraud the government and committing immigration fraud.
Williams commended the exceptional investigative work carried out by the HSI agents in building the case. He also expressed gratitude to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Office of Fraud Detection and National Security for their invaluable support.
