How rich expats navigate Trump’s immigration regulations
■ Latin American government leaders and businessmen easily find loopholes to get around Trump’s immigration policies to obtain political asylum and live in Miami.
President Donald Trump won the White House — and is trying to do it again — in large part by railing against “sanctuary cities,” refugees and other immigrants.
His “great, great wall,” funded by taxpayers, not Mexico, is progressing slowly though recently sullied by a scandal involving his former campaign chief, Steve Bannon. He has sharply increased fees for asylum seekers and green-card applicants and torn apart families at the border. If his predecessor, Barack Obama, earned the nickname “deporter in chief,” Trump has carried antipathy toward immigrants to uncharted heights.
But as it has over many years and administrations, one group continues to mostly slip through the cracks: Latin American elites, including a who’s who of Miami-based highranking government officials and business tycoons, often stay a step ahead of legal authorities. They are able to leverage their fortunes and connections to secure visas, green cards and asylum.
(Although President Trump halted most forms of legal immigration in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in September Congress voted to extend funding for the controversial EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program through December.)
An investigation by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, in conjunction with Mexico’s Aristegui Noticias and a group of independent journalists in Colombia, documents how rich foreign nationals from Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela, guided by a network of lawyers, real estate agents and bankers, have managed to stiff-arm U.S. immigration authorities and build up their financial portfolios while thwarting prosecutors back home.
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
Manuel Antonio Baldizón Méndez, 50, is a textbook kleptocrat.
In early 2015, the former Guatemalan senator was on a glide path to the presidency — despite rumors that drug clans had funded his rise.
Confident of victory, he traveled to the United States in February of that year for a pre-election tour. The reception included a meeting with Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana but soon to be tagged as Donald Trump’s running mate. Baldizón’s son Jorge was an intern for Pence.
The vice president’s office did not return the Herald’s request for comment.
Back home, events took a dark turn for Baldizón. A United Nations-backed anti-impunity commission was in the process of uncovering dozens of schemes by political leaders to siphon cash from the public treasury, ending in the resignation and arrest of the president, cabinet members and dozens of other politicians and elites.
Among those implicated, just three months before the September primary, was Baldizón’s running mate, Edgar Barquín, later convicted of illicit association and influence trafficking in a scheme of more than $100 million.
Baldizón lost the September 2015 election. A path out of Guatemala awaited. It ran through Miami, where he had spent a good deal of time.
Starting in 2011, he had accumulated a string of properties in South Florida. His links to those purchases are obscured in a tangle of limited liability corporations, but documents obtained by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald connect the dots. Clearwater International Management LLC and I-95 Inn LLC are Florida corporations at the end of a chain of title transfers between anonymous shell companies, including B&V Diversified Management LLC and Invest and Business LLC. Both of those companies were registered in Delaware, which allows corporate officers to obscure their identities. I-95 Inn and Clearwater, the Florida firms, are registered to a different Manuel Baldizón, his 27-year-old son.
Despite his political crash-and-burn at home, Baldizón remained an A-lister in U.S. Republican circles. His personal Facebook page displays photos of Baldizón at a TrumpPence inaugural ball in January 2017, where he hung out with Pence and the VP’s brothers.
ESCAPE ROUTE
Miami has always been seen as a second home for the hemisphere’s ruling class and other elites, many of whom maintain or maintained properties in Florida. It is often the first stop when they flee their homelands. In 1959, Fulgencio Batista arrived in Miami after his exile from Cuba, later ending up in the Dominican Republic. Forced to flee in the face of the Sandinista rebellion in 1979, Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza sought entry upon arrival in Miami, only to be denied refuge by President Jimmy Carter despite Somoza’s longtime ties to the community. He was assassinated a year later in Paraguay.
The explosion in highend real estate over the past decade has cemented hemispheric bonds.
Occasionally someone is snagged in the gears of law enforcement. Former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who resided in an $8 million waterfront home in Coral Gables, was extradited back to Panama in 2018 — only to be acquitted of corruption and espionage.
“Inadmissible immigrants” include those who have engaged in terrorism, drug or human trafficking, genocide, or money laundering. But loopholes are plentiful. Exclusions can be waived if a secretary of state believes that enforcing the rules would have adverse foreign policy consequences.
Influence and money — especially to hire an in-theknow attorney — can overcome the rules that crush the hopes of everyday immigrants. A review of more than 1.2 million cases obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to the Executive Office for Immigration Review revealed that 90 percent of asylum applicants without an attorney were denied asylum while almost half of those with legal representation were successful.
On its public website, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) boasts about its efficiency at arresting and deporting everincreasing numbers of immigrants, especially those with police records. Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created an office charged with stripping the citizenship of naturalized citizens suspected of committing fraud by hiding blemishes in their applications.
While these initiatives are boldly publicized, the government has been circumspect about its handling of wealthy, politically connected expatriates.
In January, the Herald filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department seeking information on the visas issued to 24 individuals linked to South Florida.
Citing “unusual circumstances,” the government has yet to provide a single document.
That same month, the Herald filed a records request with DHS, which oversees ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), for records on those same influential figures. The government repeatedly refused to comply, citing the Privacy Act of 1974, which regulates the collection, maintenance and dissemination of personal records held by federal agencies.
In his first week in office, President Trump stripped non-U.S. citizens and nonpermanent residents of those privacy protections. The Herald brought that directive to the attention of DHS, which has ignored it.
FROM THE 40TH FLOOR
Erick Archila Dehesa, former Guatemalan minister of mines and energy, has been wanted in his homeland since 2016. Prosecutors charged him in connection with a scheme to ask for “contributions” from the private sector to purchase gifts for the president and vice president, including a powerboat, an armored Jaguar, a Harley and several off-road vehicles.
By the time the arrests began, Archila was safely situated in Miami.
Juan Murillo, partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP in Washington, D.C., told the Herald he defended Archila. He said he succeeded in having the Interpol “red notice” — a request to detain by the international police agency — against Archila removed, and in derailing the extradition proceedings initiated by the Guatemalan government.
Archila, 51, is married to a U.S. citizen and continues to live comfortably. A 40th-floor unit at the Mint Condominium in downtown Miami is one of his mailing addresses, valued at more than $1.1 million. The property is registered not to Archila but to Mint 4003 Corp., a company formed in the British Virgin Islands and listed by Business Insider magazine as the world’s top tax haven.
His investments are tied to another LLC, Canal A Media Holding. That echoes the name of a cable channel Archila owns in Guatemala as part of Grupo A, one of the biggest media conglomerates in the Central American nation.
According to public filings dated Oct. 17, 2016, Archila procured the services of two top attorneys, Jed and Marvin Kurzban, partners in the prestigious Coral Gables firm Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli and Pratt, P.A., to form the LLC in Florida.
Another name partner at the same firm, Ira Kurzban, represented Archila in his immigration proceedings. Documents examined by the Herald show Archila is in the process of obtaining an L-1 visa, which is used by companies to transfer foreign executives to the United States. He also has a pending asylum petition, records show.
Since 2019, Canal A Media also appears to have been registered by Corporation Company of Miami, which belongs to Shutts & Bowen LLP, one of the oldest white-shoe firms in South Florida, whose founder, Frank B. Shutts, came to Miami to become Henry Flagler’s legal representative.
Neither firm returned the Herald’s requests for comment about Archila’s business dealings in South Florida.
In a statement, a spokesman for Grupo A said the media company has “a long trajectory of journalistic objectivity” and has “partnerships with American media companies like CNN en Español.”
A spokesperson for CNN en Español said Grupo A is one of dozens of companies with which it does business in Latin America but offered no further comment.
FATHER AND SON
Carlos Polit Faggoni, 70, had served in many government posts in Ecuador, becoming controller once again in 2017. That same year, he was accused of taking $10.1 million in bribes from the scandalplagued Brazilian-based construction giant Odebrecht S.A. He relocated to Miami, where he has had dual U.S.-Ecuadorian citizenship.
Odebrecht was an international scandal. The construction giant paid more than $780 million in bribes across 10 countries in Latin America to many in the high echelons of government and business in return for favorable bid considerations.
Ecuador tried him in absentia, and he was sentenced in June 2018.
His 39-year-old son, John, a U.S. citizen born in South Florida, was charged in Ecuador with being an accomplice and also convicted at that time. But he, too, was out of reach in Miami.
Carlos Polit has been permitted to stay even as the State Department has canceled more than 300 visas issued to other Ecuadorian citizens who are facing corruption allegations. The tally was provided by Michael Fitzpatrick, the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador.
Together, the Polits have prospered, purchasing at least three properties for almost $7 million. All are in the names of LLCs. There are legitimate reasons to use LLCs, but they can also be used to hide money from questionable sources.
Polit properties include a house in Pinecrest purchased in June 2018 and an exclusive condo at Aria on the Bay in Edgewater, bought in August 2018, both valued at more than $2.2 million, according to property records. Such acquisitions, made with cash, at least initially, by foreign buyers employing shell companies, have been a regular feature in South Florida, where a large chunk of real estate sales has involved foreign buyers using anonymous shell companies.
Concerned about dirty money being laundered through real estate, the
U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fin
CEN) has sought to strip away the mask of anonymity from real estate purchases in South Florida and a handful of other markets. Four years ago, it required that title insurance companies identify and report the individuals behind shell companies used in all-cash purchases of residential real estate costing $1 million or above. Later it lowered the threshold to $300,000.
Both of the Polits have lingering legal issues. Carlos Polit faces an extradition request by Ecuador, said Juan Carlos Sanchez, deputy mission chief at Ecuador’s embassy in Washington.
This past June, the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into the younger Polit, a former Merrill Lynch employee, to determine if his association with a broker and investment advisor registered with the SEC coincided with any alleged illegal behavior in Ecuador.
The Polits are represented by Fernando Tamayo, with the law firm Coffey Burlington. According to Tamayo, under Ecuadorian law the Polits’ convictions are not final until they have exhausted the appeals process. He said the properties were all purchased with legitimate funds.
“With regards to the SEC proceedings relating to John, we are confident that his wrongful conviction in Ecuador will soon be overturned on appeal, which would result in a favorable resolution of the SEC matter,” Tamayo said.
ODEBRECHT’S PERUVIAN PLAY
In June 2017, when Peruvian insurance millionaire Gustavo Salazar was accused of facilitating and laundering a bribe to a governor in exchange for a highway project that is over budget by $100 million, he went on TV to deny it — from Miami.
As with much of the hemisphere’s alleged corruption, the money in question originated with Odebrecht.
A Peruvian judge ordered him extradited the following year.
Salazar, 54, a legal permanent resident married to an American citizen, has stayed put. An online video shows him dancing at his daughter’s lavish December wedding in Miami.
“Being in the United States allows Gustavo Salazar to defend himself against these politically motivated and unproven allegations without the risk of sitting in a Peruvian jail during the phase of investigation,” his attorney, Lilly Ann Sánchez, told the Herald.
Arantxa Salazar, in her mid-20s, is not only Salazar’s newlywed daughter but president of eight
LLCs. She was able to secure a loan for one of the LLCs, Lulu 3103, with M & M Private Lending Group. The company’s website promises “hard money” loans — generally highinterest loans, often for short periods of time, that don’t require tax returns, credit checks or bank statements.
Since 2012, the LLCs have jointly owned a $1.5 million apartment at the Jade Signature in Sunny Isles Beach, where Gustavo Salazar apparently lives.
When asked about the transfer of assets to Gustavo Salazar’s daughter, Sánchez said “individuals are being left without any access to the banking or financial systems, thus leaving them with no choice but to transfer assets and depend on family members for any of their banking needs.”
Peru awaits a decision on its extradition request.
ABOVE THE FRAY
For 17 years, former Bolivian President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada and his defense minister, José Carlos Sánchez Berzain, have faced accusations that they authorized the military to use deadly force against civilians, a majority of them indigenous Aymara. Sixty-seven people were killed and hundreds injured in October 2003, according to news reports, although Sánchez Berzain has disputed the number and whether he directed the military’s actions.
The pro-American Sánchez de Lozada resigned and left for the United States around the same time as Sánchez Berzain, aided by the U.S. State Department, documents show. They have lived in Maryland and South Florida, respectively, since 2003.
Sánchez Berzain filed for asylum in 2006, stating he would be tortured by henchmen of then-President Evo Morales.
His request was approved in May 2007. Later that year, Bolivia’s Supreme Court allowed the country’s attorney general to formally indict Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzain on multiple charges, including genocide, and petition for their extradition.
The extradition request was denied in 2012. A new one was filed in 2014. By then, Sánchez Berzain was on his way to obtaining legal permanent residency.
Sánchez Berzain and Sánchez de Lozada have prospered in their new country. Together with his brother-in-law, Sánchez Berzain is associated with several LLCs through which various properties have been purchased. He has also carved a niche as an anti-Communist crusader among exiled Cubans and Venezuelans, opening a political center called the Interamerican Institute for Democracy, and has regularly written op-eds that inveigh against 21st Century socialism, which he calls “Castrochavism.”
He has faced legal headwinds since Harvard Law’s International Human Rights Clinic filed a civil complaint under the 1992 Torture Victims Protection Act that permits civil suits in the United States against individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, committed torture and/or extrajudicial killings.
The litigation, filed in 2007, has meandered through the courts. In April 2018, a jury in federal court in Fort Lauderdale rendered a split verdict against the pair, finding that the killings were extrajudicial and that Sánchez Berzain and Sánchez de Lozada bore responsibility under