In March, a man who needed legal representation reached out to Maria Aguila’s law office in Jacksonville, Florida, asking to meet with an attorney. The only problem was that she had never heard of this attorney, and she is a solo practitioner who focuses on immigration and family law. Aguila was in court at the time, but the man left his alleged attorney’s website and phone number. When Aguila called, someone answered and hung up. And the website, she soon discovered, listed her law firm’s name and address. It even included her employer identification number. She warned her clients in a Facebook post in English and Spanish: “Someone is IMPERSONATING MY LAW FIRM,” Aguila wrote. “PLEASE DO NOT CALL THIS BUSINESS AND PAY ANY MONEY.”

In her 26 years of practicing law, Aguila had never found herself in such a circumstance. “You put your blood, sweat, and tears into your business to help clients because it means something to you—I’m the daughter of immigrants,” Aguila, whose parents are from the Philippines, told me. “Here’s someone just taking your identity and your information and robbing people.” She filed a complaint with the Florida Bar. The scammer’s website is still online as of the publication of this story.

In the last year, the country’s most prominent legal organizations—such as the American Bar Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association— have warned that scams targeting immigrants and attorneys have increased to an alarming level. Certainly, these kinds of grifts are not new in the legal world, which for years has dealt with bad actors practicing law without a license. But representatives from several legal groups and private attorneys told me that today’s scams are more sophisticated and harder to detect thanks to the proliferation of AI and social media. “Criminals have identified this as an opportunity,” said Charity Anastasio, Practice and Ethics Counsel at AILA.

Scammers have also taken advantage of the desperate positions many immigrants find themselves in today as the Trump administration ramps up detention and deportation efforts. This population is much less likely to feel comfortable reporting a crime when ICE and law enforcement are working together more than ever. “This fear and desperation make it very ripe for individuals to be taken advantage of in........

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