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This five-part investigation was conducted by Conexión Migrante and Factchequeado with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) Disarming Disinformation program.
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After exploring several options to legalize her stay in Mexico, Alicia, whose real name we are withholding for security reasons, received a call on her cell phone that seemed to bring her hope.
She had already managed to reach the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, in northern Mexico, just south of Texas, and had secured an appointment with immigration officials in the United States through the CBP One app, implemented by the Biden administration to try to manage the growing number of migrants arriving in the country in search of asylum. But after Donald Trump took office last January, her plans changed.
The person who called her in March 2025 told her that they knew of her interest in working in North America, claimed to be calling from the organization Asylum Access, and that they had a work visa for her in Canada. If she was willing to change her destination, they could help her. She just had to go to their offices, located in a shopping mall.
Alicia accepted immediately and took note of the papers she had to bring. Most importantly, they gave her a reference number, which they said was required to enter the offices. They even offered her a discount on the visa fee for being among the first to agree to go to Canada.
But she looked up the address they had given her online and found that it was a little far from downtown Monterrey. It was a commercial space in the municipality of Santa Catarina, in the suburbs, so she searched for the Asylum Access website and called the number listed to confirm the location.
That's when she realized that they had tried to deceive and scam her, because Asylum Access does not make such offers and its offices were located in downtown Monterrey, not on the outskirts.
Asylum Access decided to warn on its social media accounts on March 12, 2025, that someone was spreading false job offers under its name in exchange for payment.
In this investigation, we went to the municipality of Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, to visit the place where Alicia was summoned, an open-air shopping plaza with a gym, a pharmacy, and several local services surrounding an outdoor parking lot. When we asked about the people in charge of the office, people working in the plaza reported that the business had closed in mid-March and that at least a dozen people had gone to ask about them.
Agents from the Nuevo León Attorney General's Office also went to investigate the premises, which offered not only work visas for North America, but also retirement and pension services with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS, for its acronym in Spanish)
Staff at the plaza reported that the premises had not been formally handed over, so they considered it to be still in operation and that those responsible had to answer to the administration.
Arturo Gómez, Program Coordinator at Asylum Access, explained that since Trump's immigration policies were tightened, they began recording cases of identity theft and attempts to commit fraud by impersonating the organization’s staff.
“With the logo or claiming to be part of Asylum Access, or even with emails from people who do work with us, but which are not sent by the team,” he said.
In his opinion, these are attempts at fraud by people linked to work with migrants who have access to their personal data.
“If you have people's data, which can probably also be obtained from the same platforms that provide access to records, for example, from COMAR, all those records are electronic,” he said.
*Fourth of a five-part series, "I'm Staying in Mexico"
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