Her Spanish-language marketing called her the "abogada de los milagros" — the lawyer of miracles. Today, Alexandra Lozano can no longer practice law anywhere, her firm has closed its doors, and tens of thousands of immigrants who trusted her are left wondering what was actually submitted under their names.
Multiple lawsuits and a legal ethics probe accuse the Washington state attorney of inventing domestic violence and human trafficking narratives to support humanitarian visa petitions her clients say they never saw. Plaintiffs contend she capitalized on immigrants' hunger for legal status, staffed her operation with workers lacking proper legal credentials, and ran what amounted to an assembly line — one that allegedly went as far as copying client signatures onto unseen paperwork.
A Caseload Measured in the Tens of Thousands
The numbers are hard to fathom. Washington's bar association has tied Lozano's signature to more than 53,900 pending petitions before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. At the time of her resignation, the firm counted roughly 35,000 clients. How many of those cases contained falsehoods — and whether any clients knew — remains an open question; the plaintiffs insist they were in the dark.
The Legal Loophole That Wasn't Supposed to Be One
Lozano's practice centered on two protective laws: the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which covers people of all genders. Congress built flexible evidence standards into these programs so genuine victims wouldn't be locked out — a design that, immigration lawyers warn, also invites exploitation by bad-faith firms. According to attorneys now representing dozens of her former clients, Lozano's staff would quiz people about everyday friction at home or on the job, then repackage those disputes as qualifying abuse. Work permits often arrived fast; the reckoning came years later, when green card applications triggered closer review.
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, says his family handed over $30,000 — only for his mother to end up in removal proceedings despite her marriage to a naturalized U.S. citizen. "We believed in her and then she just let us down," he said.
An Operation Spanning Three Countries
The alleged scheme stretched far past Washington's borders. Lozano is accused of deploying hundreds of workers in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina to counsel clients and assemble visa filings — meaning many customers never once consulted a U.S.-licensed attorney. Rafael Alvarez, who worked for the firm in Colombia from 2022 to 2024, said staff were directed to embellish because the real facts fell short: Lozano wanted them, in his words, to "invent more information about the abuse."
The model was profitable enough to franchise. Former chief operating officer Amy Rios testified in 2024 that the firm pulled in $1.7 million teaching its humanitarian-visa playbook to other law firms — and recent lawsuits accuse at least two firms, in Texas and Ohio, of running the same plays. Both deny it.
Lozano's Defense
Lozano denies any wrongdoing. Her attorney, Angelo Calfo, said clients bore the duty to read their applications before signing and are responsible for any false statements in them, characterizing her practice as one devoted to pursuing every lawful avenue on clients' behalf.
Warning signs surfaced earlier than the collapse. In 2023, the Washington bar acknowledged concerns about her practice yet dismissed an ethics complaint against her, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press.
A Swift Collapse — and Widening Fallout
The end came in a matter of weeks. Nine former clients filed a federal lawsuit in May alleging civil racketeering, legal malpractice and consumer protection violations. On May 26, rather than face a disciplinary hearing, Lozano permanently resigned from the Washington State Bar — a resolution the bar treats like disbarment, blocking her from practicing in Washington or any other jurisdiction. On June 10, the firm — by then rebranded as La Luz del Camino Legal — announced it was shutting down for good. On June 18, the Board of Immigration Appeals suspended her from appearing before the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration courts and the Board itself, and USCIS has urged her former clients to update their addresses so pending cases don't stall.
Federal scrutiny continues. USCIS's fraud unit — the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate — is investigating, according to emails obtained by the AP and reporting by the Seattle Times cited in the Yakima Herald. DHS, the agency's parent department, has declined to comment.
Collateral Damage for Real Victims
The scandal lands at the worst possible moment for legitimate applicants. The Trump administration began overhauling these humanitarian programs last year, citing "rampant fraud" behind an application boom: domestic abuse claims more than tripled between fiscal 2020 and 2025, climbing from nearly 15,000 filings a year to over 53,000, while trafficking claims exploded from around 1,000 to more than 37,000. The December overhaul narrows the definition of abuse and gives more weight to evidence from accused abusers — changes advocacy groups say will punish the very victims the programs exist to protect. Meanwhile, immigration service scams overall are surging: FTC data analyzed by the AP counted at least 920 reported in 2025, exceeding the first three years of the Biden administration combined.
Erika Gonzalez, an attorney with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, put the scale of the wreckage simply: the fallout is hitting the immigration system "like a tidal wave."
