25859: Hermantin(News)Haitian aid group accused of cheating Broward migrants seeking wo (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian aid group accused of cheating Broward migrants seeking work permits



By Akilah Johnson
Staff Writer

July 28, 2005

A Broward County community organization and its director were indicted on 
charges that they cheated thousands of unwitting illegal immigrants out of 
millions of dollars by filing fraudulent work permit forms, federal authorities 
announced Wednesday.

The Haitian American Community Help Organization of South Florida Inc. and its 
Executive Director Gomez Accime, charged people $450 to fill out and file 
employment authorization applications, according to court documents. The 
government charges a $175 filing fee and waives that for those with pending 
asylum applications.

"This organization would file a request for employment authorization documents 
regardless if they were entitled to it or not," said Mark Briesemeister, 
assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 
Miami office. "Over 99 percent of these applications have been denied because 
there was no basis for filing them."

Accime was indicted July 19 on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and presenting 
false applications for employment authorization. He will make his first court 
appearance today in Miami before federal Magistrate Ted Bandstra.

There are two categories for work permit eligibility: refugee status, for those 
with pending asylum applications, and domestic servants employed by 
non-immigrant employers.

The organization filed more than 10,000 fraudulent forms to the United States 
Citizenship and Immigration Services and received more than $3 million for 
doing so, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

One of those forms belonged to a 20-year-old Port-au-Prince native living in 
Boca Raton, who asked not to be identified because she is in the United States 
illegally. After a friend told her about the organization, she and her three 
family members drove to the group's Lauderdale Lakes office at 2 a.m. and 
waited in line for more than seven hours, she said.

Each paid $480 to have their work permit applications filed, she said. That was 
in October.

"I received a receipt, but after that I never heard from them," the student at 
Palm Beach Community College said. "I tried to call them, but they didn't 
answer the phone."

According to Briesemeister, immigration advocates and lawyers, people traveled 
from all over the country seeking help from the group.

As investigators carted away boxes of evidence from the storefront office at 
4696 N. State Road 7 on Wednesday, they encountered several people who had 
traveled from New York and New Jersey, Briesemeister said. Those individuals 
were taken into custody, he said.

Accime and the organization didn't only target Haitians, but also Jamaicans, 
Trinidadians and people from Guyana, Africa and Europe, according to court 
documents.

Their "fate in the U.S. ultimately will be decided by a U.S. immigration 
judge," Briesemeister said.

Staff Writer Kevin Smith and Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this 
report.

Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4631.


Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel