{"id":195830,"date":"2026-04-13T19:33:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195830\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T19:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:33:46","slug":"da-bragg-demands-facebook-block-scammers-from-targeting-vulnerable-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195830\/","title":{"rendered":"DA Bragg demands Facebook block scammers from targeting vulnerable migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Undocumented New Yorkers are being targeted on Facebook and other online platforms by scammers masquerading as pro bono immigration services, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Friday in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n<p>The DA urged the tech giant to install safeguards to clamp down on the quickly growing racket.<\/p>\n<p>Bragg said victims have typically been sending their payment money outside the U.S., making it difficult for authorities to recover stolen funds. He said <a href=\"https:\/\/consumer.ftc.gov\/consumer-alerts\/2024\/12\/detect-immigration-scams-start-social-media\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">scammers have been impersonating<\/a> legal organizations and religious groups, like Catholic Charities of Baltimore, Catholic Charities of Greater Houston, and Catholic Charities of Trenton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImposter accounts are using your company\u2019s platforms, including Facebook and WhatsApp, to falsely pose as pro bono legal services organizations,\u201d Bragg wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose scammers then communicate with unsuspecting victims and claim to be lawyers offering immigration services. The money that the victims send for this bogus legal assistance is typically transferred overseas, making it difficult to prosecute or recover those funds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DA asked that Meta <a href=\"https:\/\/transparency.meta.com\/policies\/community-standards\/fraud-and-scams\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">include a reporting option<\/a> for law enforcement to report impostors, suspend accounts suspected of participating in the scam, and implement stronger verification protocols.<\/p>\n<p>Immigrant rights groups condemned the social media giant for providing the means for bad actors to target people in desperate circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImmigrant New Yorkers should be able to seek legal help with confidence, but scammers increasingly prey on the vulnerable via social media,\u201d Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyic.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Immigration Coalition<\/a>, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeta is failing to adequately prevent and remove fraudulent accounts, such as those impersonating real organizations offering pro-bono legal services or others claiming to be real lawyers offering immigration services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Daily News reached out to spokespeople for Meta for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undocumented New Yorkers are being targeted on Facebook and other online platforms by scammers masquerading as pro bono&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7199,9213,288,2136,262,263,85,75,84,83,78073,607,86,9,24,12,63,78074,87,3851,78075,530,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-195830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-area","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-county","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-manhattan","16":"tag-manhattan-headlines","17":"tag-manhattan-news","18":"tag-menlo-park","19":"tag-national-news","20":"tag-national-politics","21":"tag-new-york","22":"tag-new-york-city","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-nyc","25":"tag-peninsula","26":"tag-politics","27":"tag-region","28":"tag-san-mateo-county","29":"tag-state","30":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}