In desperate straits, the Ecuadorian man clinging to his life in Baltimore made a tragic mistake.

The undocumented immigrant in his late 30s moved to the city two years ago with plans to obtain a work permit and eventually receive asylum to remain in the U.S. legally, according to Lucia Isla, who assisted his transition.

But the man paid an allegedly unscrupulous attorney $4,500 and that person failed to file the necessary paperwork. By the time Isla, who leads a nonprofit that aids immigrants, learned what happened and found another lawyer, it was too late: The time limit had expired, and two months later, the man was deported.

Amid what has been billed the nation’s largest round-up of undocumented immigrants, attorneys, advocates, social workers and therapists working with the immigrant community say unsuspecting immigrants are becoming victims of deception and predatory behavior at a troubling rate as they try to secure legal status.

From official sources, it can be hard to get a sense of the full scope of the problem. The state’s Better Business Bureau did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for state attorney general’s office declined to comment, saying that the department does not have statistics about immigrants and fraud allegations.

Locally, the Baltimore County Police Department said it had not received any reports of immigrants scams. Police departments in Howard and Anne Arundel counties also said they were unaware of incidents happening there. Baltimore City Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Immigrants have been less visible and more hesitant to engage with law enforcement during the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts, advocates say.

But immigration advocates and legal experts working within immigrant communities tell a different story.

Isla, president of Comité Latino de Baltimore, a nonprofit that provides food and housing assistance to the immigrant community, said she has seen 10 other instances where the same attorney that her client worked with has collected money from document-seeking immigrants, only to leave them in a lurch by not filing any vital paperwork on their behalf. Isla said she has not reported the attorney to authorities because of fears he might retaliate.

“He was so sad,” Isla said of the immigrant, recalling their last phone conversation from a detention center in Texas.

She also recalls a Honduran mother in her late 20s and her two children, 2 and 7, who were deported last month following an expired deadline for a work permit. The deportation came after an attorney allegedly took her money and failed to file any of the necessary paperwork.

Donna Batkis, a bilingual psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker in the Baltimore region, said she hears stories on a daily basis about scams targeting her patients. “There are so many scams going on right now,” Batkis said. “I can’t tell you how many times I hear, ‘I trusted them.’”

The offenders, she said, are typically an insider, or a person who has a trusted connection to the immigrant community. “There’s something very insidious about that,” she added.

In some ways, scams against immigrants have always been a concern. There have been many accounts, for example, of so-called “coyotes” who charge thousands of dollars to transport immigrants illegally across the border into the U.S., but then fail to deliver or leave them stranded in the desert.

But immigration attorney Adonia R. Simpson, in legal practice for 15 years, said those kinds of deceptions have reached new heights.

Scam techniques are also becoming more sophisticated. Simpson, a deputy director at the American Bar Association, said her organization has been targeted by people who use the ABA logo to pose as members of the legal group to convince immigrants to pay them for nonexistent services.

“We have seen people really being desperate to get assistance. That’s when we see an increase,” said Simpson.

These scams have caught the attention of government agencies and nonprofit groups who have dedicated pages and warnings to the schemes, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, CLINIC, and the National Immigration Justice Center.

There are also sites dedicated to reporting them, such as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Maryland Attorney General.

Immigrants seeking documented status are also falling prey to misunderstandings about the role of public notaries in the U.S.

In Spanish speaking countries, “notario público” have special legal credentials and can provide extensive legal services, according to experts. In the U.S., they cannot. They’re only allowed to witness the signing of documents and administer oaths, according to warnings from the United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services.

The concern is that immigrants are being bamboozled by public notaries in the U.S., who are promising services they can not legally perform, according to advocates.

“Only an attorney or an accredited representative working for a Department of Justice-recognized organization can give you legal advice,” the governmental department warns.

As notaries have attracted scrutiny, some have started rebranding themselves as paralegals or document preparers.

“They are playing with words,” said Susana Barrios, president of Latino Racial Justice Circle, a nonprofit that advocates, provides legal assistance and offers educational programming to the Latino community.

Barrios said she has had to repeatedly warn immigrants about unqualified people offering legal advice. Most of the time, these promised services range from $300 to $500. In almost all the cases, services provided are useless.

These individuals usually target immigrants new to the U.S. through in-person contacts and move online into WhatsApp or Facebook groups to lure in more established immigrants. Barrios said this month she has already had to deny access to three people posing as paralegals wanting to join her organization’s WhatsApp group.

Catalina Rodriguez Lima, director of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said these “dishonest actors” exploit the anxiety of families seeking help. Her office sent out a warning to Spanish-speaking residents in July.

“If something feels off, trust your instincts and verify your attorney using the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s search (ailalawyer.com), or verify that your representative is accredited by the Department of Justice (bit.ly/DOJ-Accredited),” Rodriguez Lima said.

Last month, Rodriguez Lima’s office warned about the experience of another man, a Salvadoran in his 30s, who came to City Hall to pick up a green card. The undocumented immigrant had been told by a “lawyer” to do so after paying him $5,500.

The scam operated through a Facebook post from the alleged lawyer in March. The Salvadoran man later communicated with the scam artist through WhatsApp.

The ruse was elaborate. The immigrant deposited money in a Wells Fargo account under the name Alba Anette Dukes at the scammer’s request. After making several deposits, he received images of a green card, which he was told to pick up at City Hall.

The person posing as a lawyer has not been caught and the money has not been returned, Rodriguez Lima said.

Immigrants have also been plagued by “notarios” and “paralegals” who have provided bogus information to secure power of attorney for the care of children separated from deported parents. These parents are spending as much as $14,000 in some cases to secure guardianship for their child. But that process, experts say, is not legal in Maryland.

“They think they are assigning guardianship,” Barrios added.

The workplace can also be an especially risky place for immigrants who are increasingly living in the shadows.

Advocates and legal experts say undocumented immigrants have had their wages docked illegally or their pay withheld by unscrupulous employers. These bosses bank on their employees remaining quiet because they fear attracting the notice of law enforcement, experts say.

Immigrants who do not have legal status could have a higher susceptibility for schemes because they are increasingly isolated and enjoy only limited community support, leading to a weakened mental state, Batkis said.

Immigrants caught in this world, she said, can struggle with trying to assess “what is true, healthy or logical,” she added.

Tips from experts about what immigrants should avoid to stay safe from scammers:

• Companies offering a job in the United States from overseas or by email
• Correspondence from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services outside of official government channels, such as through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• Offers through social media to be a supporter or connect you to a supporter in exchange for your personal information or forms of compensation
• Groups outside of the government that promise to fast-track you with a visa, green card, or work permit if you pay a fee.