WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Sensis announced today an award by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to develop a public awareness and education initiative providing permanent residents information on tools available to help prepare for U.S. citizenship. This multiyear contract is worth approximately $2 million in Year One.

“This is a global initiative as the message will be targeted to immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and other regions,” Sensis President Jose Villa said. “Citizenship is the goal for so many immigrants in the U.S. We want to make sure they have access to all the information they need for this important step.”

The contract includes market research, strategy, account planning, brand development, media planning, community outreach tools, digital marketing, social media, and traditional advertising to develop a comprehensive and coherent message. The naturalization process can be challenging for some, and this awareness initiative is aimed at helping legal immigrants become aware of all the resources and educational tools available to help them prepare for citizenship.

“We are excited to begin this important initiative with the Sensis team,” said Rebecca Carson, chief of the USCIS Office of Citizenship. “Through this combined effort, we seek to implement a national initiative to raise awareness about the rights, responsibilities, and importance of U.S. citizenship and the free educational tools and resources available to permanent residents.”

USCIS is a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is the government agency that oversees lawful immigration to the United States. According to its mission statement, USCIS “will secure America's promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.”

“Our work under the contract will help USCIS fulfill its mission statement by ‘providing accurate and useful information,'” Villa said. “The initiative will inform aspiring citizens of helpful resources and direct them to the right place for answers.”

About Sensis

Sensis is a precision advertising agency using digital thinking to reach the multicultural mainstream. Founded in 1998, Sensis is one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies in the United States. Agency services include full spectrum campaigns, digital advertising, mobile, brand development, social media, website design, and application development. Focused on performance and measurement, Sensis was built from the ground up to address the fundamental changes taking place in the advertising world – the emergence of digital technologies, expanded multiculturalism, and the transformative impact of social technology. The award-winning agency has made an impact for its clients, including Sempra Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, UnitedHealthcare, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, San Diego Gas & Electric, and the U.S. Army. For more information, visit SensisAgency.com.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that any U.S. citizen seeking to adopt a Nepali child, whose case is not affected by the suspension of processing of adoption cases involving Nepali children claimed to have been found abandoned, should file the Form I 600, Petition to Classify an Orphan as an Immediate Relative, with the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.

This change in the filing location for the Form I-600 petitions applies to two groups of prospective adoptive parents who are not affected by the suspension. The first group is those who received a referral letter from the Government of Nepal’s Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare before Aug. 6, 2010, informing them of a proposed match of an abandoned child. The second group is those who seek to adopt Nepali children who were relinquished by known parent(s) and whose identity and relationship can be confirmed.

USCIS strongly encourages prospective adoptive parents to follow this procedure for their own benefit, based on growing concerns about unreliable documents, irregularities in the methods used to identify children for adoption in Nepal, and the resulting difficulties in classifying those children as orphans under U.S. immigration law. Please see the Aug. 6, 2010 announcement online regarding the suspension.

To file the Form I-600 petition with the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, prospective adoptive parents should complete and sign the Form I-600 and send the Form I-600 with all required supporting documents and evidence, other than the adoption or custody decree, to their respective local agency representatives in Nepal. The local agency representatives may then deliver the documents directly to the American Citizen Services Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. Based on this filing, the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu will then complete the required orphan determination before prospective adoptive parents travel to, or adopt a child in, Nepal.

Following this procedure will protect the interests of the prospective adoptive parents and the children by ensuring that the adoptive children will be eligible to immigrate to the United States before the prospective adoptive parents travel to Nepal and complete the Nepali adoption process.

If, after completing its investigation of the case, the Embassy finds that the child qualifies as an orphan under U.S. immigration law, the prospective adoptive parents will be notified in writing that they may travel to Nepal to complete the adoption process.

For addition information about filing a Form I-600 petition at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, please visit www.adoption.state.gov. Guidance for prospective adoptive parents of Nepali children is available online at www.uscis.gov.

For more information on USCIS and its adoption programs, visit http://www.uscis.gov/adoption.

By: DOJ Eastern District of California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. September 25, 2010 — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that three attorneys and their contract interpreter were sentenced to prison terms yesterday by United States District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr., following their conviction for orchestrating a scheme to defraud the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in connection with the filing of hundreds of false asylum claims.

Jagprit Singh Sekhon, 39, of Westminster, formerly of Sacramento, was sentenced to 108 months in prison. Jagprit Sekhon’s brother and former partner in the Sekhon & Sekhon law firm, Jagdip Singh Sekhon, 42, of Salida, formerly of Oakland, was sentenced to 60 months in prison. Former law firm associate, Manjit Kaur Rai, 33, of Discovery Bay, formerly of Antioch, was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The sentencing hearing for interpreter Iosif Caza, 43, of Sacramento has not yet concluded. Interpreter Luciana Harmath, 29, of Glendale, Ariz., formerly of Sacramento, was sentenced to four months in prison on June 29, 2010. All five defendants were convicted on June 25, 2009 following a three-and-a-half month jury trial.

Judge Damrell ordered Jagdip Sekhon and Jagprit Sekhon immediately remanded into custody to begin serving their sentences. Rai was given three weeks to surrender to the designated prison.

Each of the defendants was convicted of charges related to a long-running scheme to defraud the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its successor agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), by filing hundreds of false asylum claims from early 2000 through late 2004. All five defendants were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the INS and CIS by filing fraudulent asylum claims. Jagprit Sekhon, Rai, Caza, and Harmath were also convicted of a separate conspiracy to submit a false asylum claim and of several false statement and asylum fraud counts relating to specific asylum claims. The jury convicted defendant Jagprit Sekhon on nine additional counts, convicted Rai on three additional counts, convicted Caza on six additional counts, and convicted Harmath on two additional counts.

This case was the product of an extensive investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations led by Special Agent Carol Webster. United States Attorney Wagner and Assistant United States Attorneys Camil A. Skipper and Kyle Reardon represented the government at trial. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Reardon and Saralyn Ang-Olson represented the United States in post-trial forfeiture proceedings.

In sentencing Jagdip Sekhon, Judge Damrell said that although these were flaws in the asylum system, that “doesn’t give license to lawyers to take advantage of it.” One of the primary purposes of the sentence, the judge said was “to deter future criminal conduct by lawyers who take advantage of this flawed system.”

United States Attorney Wagner said: “Through the granting of asylum, this nation offers its protection to victims of ethnic, religious, and political persecution from across the world. These defendants made a living out of cynically abusing and subverting the asylum process. That three of these defendants were licensed attorneys, officers of the court who are supposed to uphold the integrity of the process, is particularly offensive. The Department of Justice is committed to the fair administration of the immigration laws, and the sentences imposed today should remind those who participate in the adjudication of immigration cases that those who choose to cheat the system risk their own liberty by doing so.”

“As these sentences make clear, immigration benefit fraud is a serious crime,” said Daniel Lane, assistant special agent in charge for the ICE Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Sacramento. “Benefit fraud schemes like this not only undermine our nation’s legal immigration system, they also pose a potential security threat. Homeland Security Investigations will move aggressively to identify and investigate individuals who exploit and corrupt our immigration system solely to enrich themselves.”

In addition to the prison sentences imposed, several defendants have been ordered to pay financial penalties. Jagprit Sekhon entered into a stipulated money forfeiture judgments of $170,000. Following an extensive forfeiture trial, Judge Damrell ordered Jagdip Sekhon to forfeit $690,590 in ill-gotten gains. Each defendant was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following their release from prison. Parole has been abolished in the federal system, and the defendants will be required to serve at least 85 percent of the prison time imposed today. Rai and Harmath are not U.S. citizens and face deportation proceedings following the service of their sentences.

According to California’s State Bar’s Web site, the State Bar entered interim suspensions against Jagprit Sekhon, Jagdip Sekhon, and Rai on August 31, 2009. On June 17, 2010, Jagdip Sekhon resolved his State Bar charges and agreed to a two-year suspension, which was stayed with an actual nine-month suspension from the practice of law. As part of his actual suspension, he will be required to meet certain conditions before he may resume the practice of law. The Board of Immigration Appeals has barred the defendants from practicing immigration law before the Board.

USCIS and ICE are reviewing hundreds of the asylum cases to determine if they will be reopened.

Prosecution Background

According to the prosecutors, Jagprit Sekhon, Jagdip Sekhon, and Rai are attorneys licensed to practice law in California. The Sekhon brothers were partners in the law firm of Sekhon & Sekhon, which had offices in Sacramento and San Francisco and specialized in immigration cases, particularly the representation of clients seeking asylum. Rai was a senior associate in the law firm. Caza and Harmath were contract interpreters who worked with the firm on asylum claims relating to Romanian clients. According to the evidence at trial, between the late 1990s and late 2004, the defendants filed hundreds of asylum applications with INS (later CIS), on behalf of clients who were primarily Indian and Romanian nationals. They also filed claims on behalf of Fijian and Nepali clients. In order to qualify for asylum status in the United States, an applicant must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in the applicant’s home country on account of the applicant’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The application process includes a written application with supporting documents and an interview with a CIS Asylum Officer. If asylum is not granted by the Asylum Officer, the matter is referred to an administrative immigration court, called the Executive Office for Immigration Review, for a hearing.

The evidence introduced at trial showed that the defendants filed many asylum applications containing fictitious stories of persecution that the clients had supposedly suffered in their home countries on ethnic, religious, or political grounds. The applications were often supported by doctor’s letters, medical certificates, affidavits and other documents that were counterfeit or fraudulent. As a result, scores of Sekhon & Sekhon clients fraudulently obtained lawful status as asylees in the United States. The evidence established that Jagprit and Jagdip Sekhon drafted persecution narratives, which were filed with the asylum application forms that contained harrowing, but fictitious, stories of arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, and rape. Some persecution stories were reused in asylum claims for multiple clients. After filing the claims, the defendants conducted preparation sessions at which they coached their clients to memorize the false stories in preparation for interviews with Asylum Officers and hearings before the immigration court.

Many of the documents filed in support of the bogus asylum claims, including documents that purported to be notarized declarations or doctors’ certificates from Romania and India, were fraudulent, in that they were drafted based on the fictitious asylum story and not based on actual discussions with the purported declarants or doctors. Some documents that appeared to be Romanian declarations notarized in that country had in fact been created in Sacramento using a computer.

The trial evidence showed that many of the Romanian clients of Sekhon & Sekhon traveled to Sacramento from other states, such as Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Michigan, to use the firm’s services. Because these clients resided outside of the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Asylum Office, their applications included false information reflecting that they resided in northern California.

At trial, the prosecution called seven former Sekhon & Sekhon asylum clients – nationals of Romania, India, and Moldova – to testify. They told the jury that they had not suffered persecution in their home countries, and that Jagprit Sekhon had drafted the fictitious stories of persecution filed with CIS. Three of them also testified that they had purchased documents that appeared to be Romanian declarations from Caza.

During the investigation, a Romanian undercover informant, who posed as a prospective client seeking assistance with obtaining legal status in the United States, met with Jagprit Sekhon, Rai, Caza, and Harmath during late 2003 and early 2004. The informant told Jagprit Sekhon and Harmath that he had not suffered persecution in Romania, but Jagprit Sekhon nonetheless drafted and filed an asylum claim that stated that the informant had been repeatedly attacked, arrested, and beaten unconscious by police due to his Baptist religion. Audiotapes of the informant’s initial meeting with Jagprit Sekhon and Harmath, and of his subsequent preparation sessions with those two defendants and with Rai and Caza, were played at trial.

Documents presented to the jury included a large number of items recovered from the home of Caza, including Romanian notary tax stamps found under his mattress, and jpg images of seals for Romanian doctors, notaries, and churches found on floppy discs in his bedroom. Some of those seals were matched to seals on documents filed in connection with asylum claims for Sekhon & Sekhon clients. A forensic document expert testified that some documents submitted to immigration authorities that appeared to bear wet ink Romanian notary seals had in fact been produced using an inkjet printer. ICE Special Agent Carol Webster testified about her analysis of hundreds of Sekhon & Sekhon asylum claims, which established that certain phrases and scenarios were reused in multiple claims.

BALTIMORE - George Anagnostou, 41, of Kingsville, Md., was sentenced today to four months in prison and four months home detention with electronic monitoring, followed by two years of supervised release, for harboring for private financial gain and commercial advantage at least 24 unauthorized alien employees of Timbuktu and By the Docks restaurants. Anagnostou also forfeited a 2009 Harley Davidson, $378,386.21 from five bank accounts; $99,890 seized from the restaurants and Anagnostou's home on March 11, 2010; and at today's sentencing paid an additional $256,696.67, also believed to be proceeds of the crime. The investigation was led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)

According to his plea agreement, Anagnostou has been the primary owner of Timbutku Restaurant located at 1726 Dorsey Road in Hanover, Md. since March 4, 2000. Since at least 2005, Anagnostou has also been a co-owner of By the Docks Restaurant located at 3321 Eastern Boulevard in Middle River, Md.

In 1999, 10 illegal workers were arrested during a search at Timbuktu. On April 4, 2000, an order was issued requiring Timbuktu to pay a fine and to stop employing and harboring illegal aliens. Anagnostou was aware of the immigration enforcement action, as well as the fact that Timbuktu employees were arrested and ordered deported. Several of these individuals continued to work for Timbuktu after Anagnostou took over the restaurant.

Since 2000 and 2005, respectively, Anagnostou has been responsible for the hiring of employees at both Timbuktu and By the Docks. Anagnostou instructed his administrative employees and management to accept two forms of identification from applicants for employment, to make copies of the identification documents, and to keep the copies of the identification documents in the applicant's personnel file. No further steps were taken to verify the authority of the applicant to be in or to work in the United States, nor were the legally required Employment Eligibility Verification forms (I-9s) filed, which direct the employer to attest that the employer has reviewed the permissible identification documents and that they appear to be genuine. When informed that many of the applicants for the busboy and kitchen positions at both Timbuktu and By the Docks were presenting obviously fake or fraudulent identification documentation, Anagnostou instructed his employees to stop asking questions and to continue to make copies of the fraudulent documentation for the personnel files.

During this same time period, Timbutku received notice from the Social Security Administration that a number of the restaurant's employees were using Social Security numbers that did not match the names assigned those numbers in the records of the Social Security Administration. Anagnostou made no effort to verify the Social Security numbers provided by his employees. All of the employees with mismatched Social Security numbers continued to be employed by Timbuktu.

Anagnostou admitted that over the last five years he harbored at least 24 illegal alien employees from Timbuktu and By the Docks for financial gain and commercial advantage. Anagnostou gained the benefit of their labor, which facilitated the operation of his restaurants. He was able to guarantee their continuing labor by providing housing in residences close to the restaurants. An unlawful alien employee was also living upstairs at the By the Docks Restaurant. With the exception of those living at 1730 Dorsey Road, Anagnostou deducted rental payments from the overtime owed to the illegal alien employees, many of who regularly worked up to 80 hours a week and were routinely paid in cash to avoid their tax liability. Anagnostou did not claim the rental income on his tax returns, nor did he withhold FICA taxes from these overtime payments, as he was legally required to do.

On the morning of March 11, 2010, ICE HSI special agents executed several search warrants in connection with this investigation, during which time 29 unauthorized aliens were arrested at Timbuktu, By the Docs and residences close to the restaurants.