California Immigration Services Executives Face Charges for Alleged Asylum Applications Scam

A person looks over a welcome packet during a naturalization ceremony at Damrosch Park in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City on Sept. 17, 2021. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Two executives of an immigration services company in California have been charged with inserting false statements into asylum applications and encouraging clients to lie during asylum interviews, prosecutors said.

Dongquan “Derek” Jin and Yimin “Kelly” Lu have been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly aiding and abetting false statements on asylum applications, according to an Oct. 11 statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

Jin and Lu ran Gospel Immigration Service, a company based in Newark, California, that provided clients with “assistance in applying for immigration documents and benefits, including asylum,” according to the indictment. Jin was the company’s chief executive officer, and Lu was the secretary and chief financial officer.

The two charged their clients a minimum of $5,000, and clients who paid more were considered VIP customers who “received more assistance with their applications,” prosecutors said.

Their scheme allegedly lasted from 2013 to 2024, during which time the two were listed as “application preparers” for more than 200 asylum applications submitted to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), according to the indictment.

Jin and Lu allegedly provided their clients with “sample personal statements” describing persecution to use in preparing their own personal statements supporting their asylum claims.

The two defendants then “reviewed and edited their clients’ personal statements” and, in doing so, would include “false and embellished details that they believed would increase the chances that their clients would be granted asylum,” the indictment alleges.

In preparing their clients for asylum interviews with USCIS, Jin and Lu allegedly instructed them to memorize false details in their applications, and held “interview training sessions” to increase the chances of a favorable outcome, according to the indictment.

The indictment further alleges that Jin and Lu pressured clients to give them additional pay, or “red envelopes,” once their applications were approved.

One Chinese national, known only as “R.W.” in the indictment, paid Lu about $5,000 for his services in 2019. According to the indictment, Lu allegedly assisted with the application process, “falsely indicating R.W. had been arrested, threatened, and physically abused by government officials in China for practicing Christianity.” R.W. was eventually granted asylum in the United States.

Jin allegedly used the same false information about being a Christian in China in 2015 to help another Chinese national described in the indictment as “G.Y.,” whose asylum application was not granted, according to the indictment.

Another Chinese national, described as “M.C.” in the indictment, was granted asylum after paying for Jin’s services in 2019. According to the indictment, Jin allegedly helped with the asylum application by “falsely indicating M.C. had been physically forced to have an abortion against her will by government officials in China.”

Jin and Lu are scheduled to appear in federal court in San Francisco on Oct. 16.

If convicted, Jin and Lu each face a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 fine.

Lu’s lawyer didn’t respond by publication time to a request for comment.

A similar case occurred in May 2013, when three individuals pleaded guilty in connection with a massive immigration fraud scheme involving thousands of asylum applications submitted by at least 10 law firms, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The law firms fabricated stories of persecution on clients’ asylum applications. These fabricated stories often involved forced abortions because of China’s family planning policy, persecution based on Christian faith, and political or ideological persecution based on membership in China’s Democratic Party or the practice of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice whose members are currently being persecuted by the Chinese regime.

“The United States opens its arms to victims of persecution across the globe, and our asylum laws are the vehicle through which we are able to provide that critical safety net,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement at the time.

“Those who orchestrate fraud under the asylum laws, like the defendants in this case, make it more difficult for genuine victims, and we will come down hard on them.”