You can’t say the feds in Florida don’t have suspicious minds.
A federal grand jury has indicted a man named Elvis on 25 counts of ripping off illegal aliens by telling them he would represent them in proceedings before the federal government, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of the Sunshine State announced on Monday.
The charges include mail fraud and identity theft. The suspect collected more than $1 million from the unsuspecting illegals, prosecutors allege.
In other words, Elvis might soon be singing “Jailhouse Rock.”
The Charges
Elvis Harold Reyes was nothing if not inventive, federal prosecutors say.
The 56-year-old from Brandon, Florida, ran the lucrative scheme through his eponymously acronymed EHR ministries, the feds allege, and “targeted undocumented immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries who were seeking Florida driver licenses and work authorization.” He also “gave false, inaccurate, and incomplete legal and immigration advice to victims in order to induce them to retain his services and those of EHR Ministries.”
Reyes, prosecutors allege, “filed fraudulent immigration applications in the victims’ names, seeking asylum relief and withholding-of-removal protections provided for under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.”
Reyes fooled his victims, the indictment alleges, by convincing illegal aliens that he was “an attorney, Pastor, accountant, immigration expert, and former [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] official, and former employee and agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Department of Homeland Security.”
The indictment alleges that Reyes “did knowingly prepare and file” federal immigration forms that he “knew contained false statements, including false biographical information, false residential addresses, fabricated preparer names and false narratives.”
“To be eligible for asylum status,” the indictment notes, “an alien had to establish that he was unable or unwilling to return to his country of nationality or residence because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”
Thus did the false narratives, the indictment continues, include “fabricated representations about threats, persecution, and fear of returning to the applicants native countries due to drug cartel related crime, political corruption, Gang Related violence, other organized crime, and government-sponsored torture.”
As well, he “fabricated personal stories about being victimized by human trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, murder, torture, and police corruption,” the indictment alleges.
Reyes advertised his “services” through social media, websites, and with business cards, the indictment alleges.
The mail-fraud charges arise from his using the U.S. Postal Service to mail the fraudulent documents.
Eight counts of the indictment involved that mail fraud, while counts nine through 16 involved false statements to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The last nine counts, 17 through 25, involved aggravated identity theft in using the mail to file the falsified federal documents.
Prosecutors say Reyes bilked more than 215 illegals out of more than $1 million.
If convicted, the federal prosecutor said, he could land 20 years in prison for each of the eight counts of mail fraud, another 15 years for each false statement, and then a mandatory, consecutive term of two years’ imprisonment for the aggravated identity theft counts.
Phony Asylum Claims
The case against Reyes is hardly a surprise.
Almost all asylum claims are bogus, as the Trump administration showed when it promulgated the Migrant Protection Protocols that require illegal aliens to remain in Mexico while awaiting a decision on those claims.
About “9 out of 10 asylum claims from Northern Triangle countries are ultimately found non-meritorious by federal immigration judges,” the administration fact sheet says. “Because of the court backlog and the impact of outdated laws and misguided court decisions, many of these individuals have disappeared into the country before a judge denies their claim and simply become fugitives.”
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the protocols, also known as Remain in Mexico, will remain in force as the lawsuit that seeks to block them winds through lower federal courts.
As for Elvis, illegal aliens were not, it turns out, his good luck charm.
Image: Andranik Hakobyan via iStock / Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
