Notario is not a lawyer: what a Florida notary may do, what section 454.23 makes a felony, and how a filing already made gets repaired.
Reviewed by Ekaterina Fitenko, Esq. — Florida Bar #1064536. With 20+ years of experience in the legal field, she takes over cases that were prepared by non-lawyers and files the corrections, for Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking clients in South Florida, in English and Russian.
A notary public in the United States and a notary in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan or Latin America are two different professions that share one word. In a civil-law country, the notary is a law graduate holding a state licence who drafts binding instruments, verifies that a transaction is lawful, keeps a register, and bears professional liability for what they certify. In Florida, a notary public is appointed by the Governor for 4 years under section 117.01(1), Florida Statutes, and their job is to witness a signature and administer an oath.
The gap between those two roles is not a matter of degree. It is the difference between a legal professional and a witness. A newcomer who walks into an office with a sign reading notario is applying a lifetime of correct assumptions from home to an American storefront where none of them hold, and the person behind the desk knows it. That is the mechanism. The scam does not rely on a forged diploma; it relies on a translation.
The price tells you nothing, which is what makes it dangerous. A Florida notary public may not charge more than $10 for any one notarial act under section 117.05(2)(a), Florida Statutes. An office charging $2,500 to prepare an immigration case is not charging you for notarial acts. It is charging you for legal work it is not permitted to do, and the invoice is the first piece of evidence in your later complaint.
This page is about damage and repair. Which forms, which deadlines, which agency, what to take back, and where to report — for the situation where the filing has already happened.
A Florida notary public witnesses signatures, administers oaths and affirmations, attests to photocopies and performs the other acts named in Chapter 117 of the Florida Statutes. Nothing in that chapter authorizes selecting a form, assessing eligibility, or advising on how to answer a question. The notary certifies that the person who signed is who they say they are — not that the document is correct, and not that it should have been signed at all.
Florida wrote the immigration version of this problem into the statute itself, and the wording is worth reading because it is the fastest test of the office you are standing in. Section 117.05(10), Florida Statutes, requires a notary public who is not an attorney and who advertises notary services in a language other than English to include, in that same language and in English, in a conspicuous size: "I AM NOT AN ATTORNEY LICENSED TO PRACTICE LAW IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA, AND I MAY NOT GIVE LEGAL ADVICE OR ACCEPT FEES FOR LEGAL ADVICE."
Section 117.05(11) goes further and bans the vocabulary. Paragraph (a) prohibits the literal translation of the phrase "Notary Public" into a language other than English in an advertisement for notarial services. Paragraph (b) prohibits a notary who is not authorized to represent people in immigration matters from using the terms notario público, notario, immigration assistant, immigration consultant, immigration specialist, or any designation implying professional skill in immigration law.
Read that list again, because it is not a list of suspicious job titles. It is a list of titles the Florida Legislature specifically banned, which means every one of them printed on a door or a business card is itself a violation. An office that calls itself an immigration consultant is not operating in a gray area; it is operating against a statute that names its sign.
Section 454.23, Florida Statutes, makes unlicensed practice of law a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in sections 775.082, 775.083 and 775.084. The statute reaches two separate things: practising law without a licence, and holding oneself out to the public as qualified to practise. Someone can commit the second without ever touching a form.
The line between preparation and practice is easier to test than people expect. Typing your dictated answers onto a form and charging for the typing is document preparation. Telling you which form applies, whether you qualify, how to describe a 2019 arrest, whether an old overstay matters, what a Request for Evidence is asking for, or whether to file at all is legal advice. There is no middle category, and there is no version of it that becomes lawful because you consented or because the fee was modest.
Enforcement runs through the Supreme Court of Florida, which holds exclusive jurisdiction over the practice of law in the state and created The Florida Bar to police it. The Bar's Unlicensed Practice of Law department investigates and, where warranted, asks the court for an injunction or accepts a cease-and-desist affidavit. What the Bar does not do is get your money back. Restitution, where it happens at all, comes from a separate civil or criminal track — which is one reason to keep every receipt from the day you notice the problem.
Representation before the Department of Homeland Security is a closed list, written out in 8 CFR 292.1(a), and the regulation ends by stating that no other person shall represent others in any case. Two entries on that list matter to almost everybody reading this.
The remaining entries are narrow and are worth knowing precisely because a consultant will sometimes gesture at them. Law students and law graduates may appear under supervision, without compensation, with the agency's permission. A "reputable individual" may appear on an individual case at your request only if they appear without direct or indirect remuneration, file a written declaration to that effect, and have a pre-existing relationship with you — a relative, a neighbour, a member of the clergy — and the regulation adds that permission will not be granted to anyone who regularly engages in immigration practice. In other words, the one category that lets a non-lawyer help you is the one that forbids them to be paid and forbids them to do it for a living.
The visible consequence of representation is Form G-28, Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Accredited Representative. Once it is on file, 8 CFR 292.5(a) requires the agency to serve notices on the representative of record. That is why a case with a real representative behaves differently: someone other than you is legally entitled to receive the mail and legally accountable for the answer. A consultant cannot file a G-28, so no G-28 exists in your file, so as far as USCIS is concerned you filed alone. Every notice, every request, every denial goes to the address on the form — and if that address is the consultant's office, you will not see any of it.
The money is the smallest part of the loss. What follows is the list of consequences we most often find already in place when a client brings us a case that was prepared by a non-lawyer, and the order runs from repairable to permanent.
The wrong form, or the right form filed too early. Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(1) an applicant must be eligible at the time of filing and must continue to be eligible through adjudication. A petition submitted before eligibility existed is not held in a queue until the facts catch up; it is denied on the record, and the denial then has to be explained in everything that follows.
A missed deadline, which is how most cases die quietly. USCIS sets a maximum response period of 12 weeks for a Request for Evidence and 30 days for a Notice of Intent to Deny under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(8), with 3 days added when the notice was mailed — 87 and 33 days respectively. Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(13), a request that goes unanswered by the required date may be denied as abandoned, denied on the record, or both. Nobody has to prove bad intent. The clock simply runs out, usually in an office where the mail was never opened.
An answer the applicant did not read and did not understand. Every USCIS form is signed under penalty of perjury by the applicant, not by whoever typed it. The consultant's exposure ends when they hand you the pen; yours begins there and does not end. A willful misrepresentation of a material fact made to obtain an immigration benefit triggers inadmissibility under INA 212(a)(6)(C)(i), and the waiver on Form I-601 requires extreme hardship to a qualifying relative rather than to you.
A false claim to U.S. citizenship, which is the one that does not come back. Under INA 212(a)(6)(C)(ii), a false claim to U.S. citizenship made to obtain a benefit renders a person inadmissible, and USCIS policy states plainly that there is no waiver of this ground in INA 212. Congress authorized waivers for certain adjustment categories, and there is a narrow statutory exception for a claim made on or after September 30, 1996 by someone who reasonably believed they were a U.S. citizen — but there is no exception based on age or on mental capacity at the time of the claim. A box checked on an employment form, a line on a benefits application, a voter registration filled in by somebody else at a table in a storefront: any of these can reach this ground.
The case abandoned by the preparer. Offices of this kind close, change names and move. The client learns about it when an interview notice arrives at an address that no longer exists, or does not arrive at all, or when the case status has said "Request for Evidence Sent" for eight months and nobody responded.
You can usually tell what happened to your case from four documents, and the diagnostic value is in which of them do not exist. Check for these before anything else, because they determine what your options are.
The receipt number is the single most valuable item on the list. It identifies the case in the agency's system, it is what a new attorney uses to find out where the file physically is, and it is what lets you check status yourself instead of relying on the person who took your money.
Start by taking back what is physically yours: original passports, birth and marriage certificates, diplomas, foreign civil records, every USCIS notice, and every receipt or payment record for what you paid. Ask in writing — a text message or an email is enough — and keep the request itself, because a refusal is evidence and a written refusal is better evidence. Original civil documents issued abroad can take months to replace, so this is the errand that goes first.
Then change the address of record. Most people in the United States who are not U.S. citizens must report a change of address to USCIS within 10 days of moving, on Form AR-11. If notices have been going to a consultant's storefront, updating the address is what stops the next Request for Evidence from landing somewhere you cannot reach it, and it is a step you can complete yourself the same day.
To learn what was actually filed, request your own immigration record through a FOIA request. Since January 22, 2026, USCIS requires FOIA and Privacy Act requests for its records to be submitted online through first.uscis.gov, where the request can be tracked and the records downloaded when they are released. Requesting specific documents rather than an entire file is faster, and a lawyer will usually ask for the A-file contents together with any notices issued. This is also the honest reason a competent office will not give you a firm plan on the first day: advising on a filing nobody has read is guesswork dressed as advice.
One more habit worth adopting immediately. Photograph or scan every page before it leaves your hands, including anything you are asked to sign, and keep the images somewhere you control. Clients who did this recover in weeks. Clients who did not spend those weeks waiting on a records request.
There are real repair mechanisms, and which one applies depends entirely on the stage your case is at — pending, under a request, denied, or never filed. Nobody can tell you which one is yours without the record. What follows is the map, not a recommendation.
Two things are worth saying plainly. First, a great deal is repairable — a case that was filed badly is usually not a case that is over, and the most common outcome after a records request is a corrected filing rather than a catastrophe. Second, no honest lawyer will tell you which of these applies before reading the record, and nobody may promise you the result: Florida Bar advertising rules prohibit predicting the outcome of a case, and a guarantee of approval is itself the same warning sign that got the case into this state.
Reporting is a separate action from repairing your case, and you can do both. USCIS states that reporting a scam will not affect your own application or petition. Four channels do different work.
Bring the same package to each: dates, amounts, receipts, text messages, the advertisement or business card, and any form you were given a copy of. A complaint with an invoice and a screenshot of a sign that says notario is a usable complaint. A complaint that describes a conversation is much harder to act on.
Our initial consultation is $200 for 30 minutes, paid before the meeting, and it is credited toward your fee if you retain the firm. It is conducted in English or Russian, by phone, by video, or at our office at 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076.
For a case that somebody else already filed, those 30 minutes are spent differently than for a new case. We go through what you signed, what receipts exist, what USCIS has already sent, and where the case stands today — and if the record has to be retrieved before anyone can advise responsibly, we say so and start that request rather than quoting a plan built on a description. Bring your copies, your Form I-797C notices, and the receipts for what you paid.
To start, fill out the intake questionnaire at fitenkolaw.com/intake, call (305) 315-3425, or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com. Our second office at 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 receives clients by prior appointment only. If a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny is already in your hands, say so when you call — those pages carry the deadline, and responding to an RFE and responding to a NOID run on different clocks. Useful background before the call: how to respond to a USCIS Request for Evidence, our guide for Russian speakers, what immigration legal fees in Florida cover, and what case strategy work involves.
A Florida notary public may witness your signature and administer an oath, and may not tell you which form to file, whether you qualify, or how to answer a question — that is legal advice, and section 454.23, Florida Statutes, makes unlicensed practice of law a third-degree felony. A notary public who is not a lawyer and advertises in a language other than English must state in that advertisement, in both languages, that they are not an attorney licensed to practise law in Florida and may not give legal advice or accept fees for legal advice. Section 117.05(11) separately forbids them to call themselves notario público, an immigration assistant, an immigration consultant or an immigration specialist.
Often, yes, and the first step is finding out what was actually filed rather than what you were told was filed. Locate your Form I-797C receipt notices and their 13-character receipt numbers, request your immigration record through first.uscis.gov, and change your address of record on Form AR-11 within 10 days if notices have been going to the preparer's office. Which repair applies — a response to a pending request, a new Form G-28 putting a lawyer on the record, a withdrawal, or a motion on Form I-290B — depends on the stage the case is at, and it cannot be chosen responsibly before the record is read.
There is a formal mechanism and it runs on a short clock. Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, must be filed within 30 calendar days of the date the decision was served, or 33 calendar days if USCIS mailed it to you; an appeal from revocation of an approved immigrant petition under 8 CFR 205.2 must be filed within 15 calendar days, or 18 if mailed. A new filing is possible in many situations even after that window closes, but the earlier denial remains in the agency's record and has to be explained in whatever comes next.
Serious enough to raise before anything else is filed. A false claim to U.S. citizenship made to obtain a benefit is a ground of inadmissibility under INA 212(a)(6)(C)(ii), and USCIS policy states there is no waiver of this ground in INA 212, although Congress authorized waivers for certain adjustment categories and a narrow statutory exception exists for a claim made on or after September 30, 1996 by a person who reasonably believed they were a U.S. citizen. There is no exception based on age or mental capacity at the time of the claim. If you suspect a box was checked on your behalf, get a copy of the document before your next appointment.
Put the request in writing and keep it — a text message or an email that lists the specific documents creates a dated record, and a refusal in writing is stronger evidence than a refusal on the phone. Meanwhile, start replacing what you can: foreign civil records take months to reissue, so the request goes out before the dispute is resolved. The refusal itself belongs in your complaint to The Florida Bar's Unlicensed Practice of Law department at 850-561-5840 and to the Florida Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division at myfloridalegal.com.
USCIS states that reporting an immigration services scam will not affect your own application or petition. Report unlicensed practice of law to The Florida Bar's UPL department at 850-561-5840, in writing and with a declaration under penalty of perjury above your signature; report the fraud to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov and to the Florida Attorney General at myfloridalegal.com or 1-866-9-NO-SCAM. USCIS guidance on scams is at uscis.gov/avoid-scams, and the USCIS Contact Center is 1-800-375-5283.
$200 for 30 minutes, in English or Russian, paid before the meeting and credited toward your fee if you retain the firm. Call (305) 315-3425 or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com to schedule.
This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Statutes, regulations, form editions and agency deadlines change; confirm current requirements with USCIS, The Florida Bar and the text of the cited provisions before acting. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Fitenko Law PLLC, 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076 (main office); 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 (by appointment only). Phone: (305) 315-3425. Email: fitenkolaw@gmail.com