Suit alleges they were forced to pay steep fees for help getting jobs in Louisiana. To Ingrid Cruz and Rolando Pas­cual, the offer was enticing. They could move to the United States from the Philippines, help fill a short­age of teachers in post-Katrina Loui­siana and increase their wages many times over. But things didn’t go as expected, the teachers said in a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles. Cruz and Pascual contend they were among hundreds of Filipinos who took teaching jobs in the U.S. since 2007, only to be forced to pay exorbitant fees to a Los Angeles firm that helped get them their jobs.The lawsuit accused the Kore­atown firm, Universal Placement International Inc., and its president, Lourdes “Lulu” Navarro, of forcing the Filipino teachers to pay immi­gration fees that under federal law should have been paid by the dis­tricts that hired them.

The Filipino teachers also claim that they were pressured into paying a second fee of as much as $8,000 before they would be allowed to leave the Philippines and additional fees once they arrived in the United States. Before they arrived in the United States, many teachers had paid $16,000 in recruitment and im­migration charges, the lawsuit said. Navarro’s attorney, Don A. Her­nandez, said all the fees were fair and disclosed up front. He said the lawsuit was triggered by a small group of disgruntled teachers who are trying to stiff his client for fees they had agreed to pay.

“There is and never has been any evidence of trafficking, fraud, undue influence, extortion or compulsion of any of the teachers who now hap­pily reside in Louisiana and receive salaries at least five times higher than they would have received had they remained in the Philippines,” Hernandez said.

Cruz and Pascual are among five plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified compensatory and pu­nitive damages. A judge has not yet ruled on a request to certify the law­suit as a class action, a move that could add about 350 teachers to the litigation. James Knoepp, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing the Filipino teachers, said Navarro “crossed the line by charging people excessive fees without disclosing what the fees were going to be for” or that they should have been paid by the school district.

According to the lawsuit, Navarro was previously convicted of defraud­ing the California Medi-Cal system of more than $1 million. She pleaded no contest to grand theft in 2000 and was sentenced to one year in Orange County Jail, court records show. She has also been convicted of money laundering in New Jersey. Hernandez said Navarro’s crimi­nal convictions have no bearing on the teachers’ lawsuit. He said six teachers have signed sworn state­ments that said they were happy with the services they received from Navarro’s company and from an af­filiated Philippines company, PARS International Placement Agency.

“Within two years of my arrival in the U.S., I paid back all the fees I owed,” one of those teachers, Arvin Dones, said in his statement. “I truly believe that I received valuable ser­vices from PARS and UPI and that the amount of money I paid the agencies was fair.” The teacher plaintiffs have also sued the East Baton Rouge Par­ish School Board in Louisiana and Pasadena attorney Robert B. Silver­man, accusing them of participating in a scheme that left many teachers saddled with debt and victims of “forced labor.”

A spokesman for the school board did not return a call from The Times. A judge dismissed human-trafficking claims against the school board but let stand allegations that the school system was negligent in hiring Navarro because of her prior criminal convictions.

Silverman, the attorney named as a defendant in the lawsuit, is accused of serving as a “legal facilitator” for Navarro and the other defendants. The teachers have accused him of malpractice for failing to advise them that the school districts should have paid their immigration fees, costing them thousands of dollars each. Silverman’s attorney, Brian Ox­man, said the teachers’ lawsuit “has no factual or legal support.” Oxman said the Labor Depart­ment and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have investigated “and there have been no adverse findings with regard to the actions of Mr. Sil­verman or anyone else named as a defendant.”

Labor Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Todd said the agency was still reviewing the teachers’ com­plaint but declined further comment. Immigration and Customs Enforce­ment did not respond to a request for comment. Oxman said Silverman filed immi­gration petitions that enabled scores of teachers to immigrate to the Unit­ed States from the Philippines and earn “upwards of $40,000 per year, which is five times more than the in­come they would have received in the Philippines.” He added that the influx of teachers from the Philippines has improved Louisi­ana schools and prompted “an immediate and measurable in­crease in testing averages.”

The teachers’ lawsuit was filed in 2010 and is scheduled to go to trial next year. - Los Angeles Times

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