Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
F.B.I. agents during a raid in Chinatown in Manhattan on Tuesday. Twenty-six people, including six lawyers and employees of at least 10 law firms, were arrested in what the authorities said was a plot to orchestrate false asylum claims for Chinese immigrants.
They invented woeful tales of persecution for their Chinese clients. Prepped them on how to lie about having had a forced abortion. Even tutored them on religion.
In all, 26 people, including 6 lawyers, were charged Tuesday with helping Chinese immigrants submit false asylum claims in an attempt to remain in the United States, law enforcement officials said.
The indictments describe elaborate schemes based in law offices in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens, which involved teams of paralegals and office managers, translators and a church official, who conspired to dupe immigration officials by inventing stories of political and religious persecution for their clients, officials said.
According to the indictments, female clients who sought asylum based on China’s one-child policy were encouraged to prepare for asylum interviews by watching Chinese soap operas so they could describe the experience of receiving a forced abortion. Some paralegals were called “story writers” because of their knack for inventing detailed tales of persecution. A church official in Flushing prepared clients for questions about religion by offering basic instruction in Christianity.
More than 20 defendants were arrested in raids at several locations in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing late Tuesday morning, capping a three-year investigation.
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the defendants of “weaving elaborate fictions” and making it “more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”
The federal indictments charged employees of at least 10 law firms, the authorities said. In the past few years, the firms filed more than 1,900 asylum applications, according to the indictments, although officials did not specify how many of those they believe were fraudulent.
Tuesday’s operation appeared to be among the largest roundups of lawyers and their associates in New York City in connection with asylum fraud allegations. Even so, the indictments only hinted at the pervasiveness of immigration fraud within the Chinese diaspora, experts said.
Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies and urban affairs at Hunter College, said that he believed most Chinese asylum cases in New York City were fraudulent.
“This is an industry,” said Mr. Kwong, who has written widely on the Chinese population in New York City. “Everybody knows about it, and these violations go on all the time.”
Wary of widespread fraud, Mr. Kwong said he had turned down numerous offers from immigration lawyers to be a witness in asylum cases.
The investigation began after federal immigration officials in the New York Asylum Office told investigators they were seeing similarities in many of the cases they were handling, according to an official briefed on the investigation.
In many of the asylum cases reviewed by investigators, Chinese immigrants said they had been persecuted for being Christian or followers of Falun Gong. Others said they were persecuted for their political leanings. Yet others claimed they had suffered as a result of forcible abortions under China’s family-planning rules, the authorities said.
But investigators determined that many of the asylum applicants “had not actually suffered persecution in China,” according to the indictments.
In exchange for money, the indictments state, “the law firm would make up a story of persecution and the client would need to memorize that story.”
Many of the law firms also referred asylum seekers to the Full Gospel Church in Flushing, where they would meet with a church official, Liying Lin, prosecutors said.
Ms. Lin, 29, provided services to asylum seekers including “training in the basic tenets of Christianity,” prosecutors said. But much of Ms. Lin’s instruction was specifically aimed at tricking the immigration authorities, according to the indictment against her, which claimed that she “trained asylum applicants on what questions about religious belief would be asked during an asylum interview and coached the clients on how to answer.”
In return for such instruction, applicants “were expected to make cash donations.” For an additional price, Ms. Lin provided certificates showing “the client’s attendance at church and/or the client’s baptism,” according to the indictment.
Ms. Lin also served on occasion as an interpreter for immigrants during their immigration hearings. If one of her students gave the wrong answer concerning Christianity, Ms. Lin “would kick them on the foot,” according to an indictment.
A top F.B.I. official in the New York office, George Venizelos, said in a statement that some of the defendants had “used religion like a fake passport or phony ID — a perversion of religious freedom.”
Several of the arrests took place at 11 a.m. near the intersection of Catherine Street and East Broadway in Chinatown. F.B.I. agents in raid jackets could be seen leading defendants, who included several women who appeared to be in their 30s and 40s, out of nearby office buildings, as nearby residents and passers-by paused to watch.
Other arrests occurred in Flushing, another major enclave of Chinese residents.
All 26 defendants were charged with conspiring to commit immigration fraud. They were awaiting arraignment Tuesday night.
