They hoped to fix their immigration status. They got scammed instead

In Orange County, attorney Sabrina Rivera received an email in April from a man in Colorado who was panicked about an immigration case. He believed Rivera was his lawyer because scammers used her name and her Colorado state bar license number, sending him screenshots of text conversations with an impersonator. He told Rivera he had paid at least $700 since February. Legal experts say immigration scams surged over the past year and a half as crackdowns generated thousands of new cases. Scammers have increasingly stolen the identities of licensed attorneys, sometimes using AI-generated photos and websites or repurposed videos with altered audio. Separate from impersonation, some attorneys allegedly filed invalid asylum or permanent-residency applications on behalf of unwitting clients.