Six deported clients, a pink private jet and a mansion in Mexico: the alleged fraud that made the ‘Miracle Lawyer’ wealthy

While Carlos Navarro Ceja was enduring confinement in a cold immigration detention center, social media circulated a very different image of his case. In a video, his legal defender, Alexandra Lozano, who called herself “La abogada de los milagros” (The Miracle Lawyer), appeared smiling alongside him and his wife, showing what she claimed were both their permanent resident cards. In fact, it was a work permit that was later revoked by authorities. Navarro Ceja never obtained a green card, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him in December 2025. After four grueling months in custody, in April 2026 he decided to accept deportation and returned to his native Michoacán, ending 33 years of life in the United States.

Navarro Ceja and his wife, María Guadalupe Fernández Raya, gave Lozano the $47,500 they had saved for years, hoping to regularize their immigration status. Their plan was to seek protection under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a provision that protects certain victims of abuse and allows them to apply for immigration benefits. They said they had compelling evidence to win the case. Instead, they ended up caught in what appears to be one of the biggest alleged immigration fraud scandals in decades.

After facing multiple allegations of legal malpractice, Lozano surrendered her license to practice to the Washington State Bar and shut the doors of several law offices, leaving nearly 54,000 immigration cases in limbo. At least six of her clients, including Navarro Ceja, were deported to Mexico, and many others ended up on ICE’s blacklist. It is alleged that several VAWA petitions that her office submitted contained false or exaggerated statements that did not withstand scrutiny in immigration courts, resulting in many clients facing removal orders.

Two class-action lawsuits filed in a federal court in Seattle contend that Lozano amassed a fortune in a few years through an alleged fraudulent scheme, driven by an aggressive marketing strategy on Facebook and TikTok that projected an almost divine image of her services. With her trademark blonde hair and Spanish marked by a slight accent, she often recorded videos in front of a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe (a venerated figure in Mexico, where the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the world) or wore dresses whose designs evoked the Sacred Heart of Jesus. “Thanks to the Virgencita, for families reunited and for lives changed,” one of her ads said. Today, however, about 35 Mexicans claim in the lawsuits that they were victims of someone who falsely promised to pull them out of the shadows.

Illicit enrichment, organized crime, legal malpractice and breach of contract are among the alleged offenses cited in the complaints against Lozano. “Based on average fees charged (up to $25,000 per case) and the number of current clients, Lozano has received payments or promises of payment exceeding $400 million,” one of the suits states. “Lozano’s firm described itself as ‘a pioneering law practice that revolutionized immigration law,’” the document adds, noting that, nevertheless, that purportedly “pioneering,” “innovative and novel” approach was fraudulent and illegal.

Lozano’s suspect fortune

In an interview with Super Lawyers magazine in July 2021, Lozano said her firm had about 100 employees. Five years later the business had grown rapidly: the staff topped 750 workers handling cases from offices in Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Antonio, and also had personnel in Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua and the Philippines. All of those offices closed after she lost her license.

Her success was fueled by an intense social media presence and word of mouth within the immigrant community, a combination that drove up client numbers and, with them, revenues. According to the class-action suits, she represented more than 80,000 people, mostly undocumented Mexican immigrants, who paid between $10,000 and $25,000 per case.

With part of those earnings, Lozano bought herself a Bombardier Challenger 300 private jet, valued at about $25 million, which she ordered painted pink and which she used for business and leisure trips. “It’s very rare for an attorney to own a private jet. What she did is utterly outrageous,” said Vicente Barraza, who legally represents 34 alleged victims in one of the suits, in an interview with EL PAÍS. “This is the worst immigration fraud case I’ve encountered. It has been a real catastrophe for the Hispanic community in this country.”

The pink jet was just one of the extravagant whims that Lozano is alleged to have indulged in. The lawsuits claim her main gamble was building what they describe as a “multimillion-dollar portfolio of domestic real estate.” Her assets reportedly included two luxury condos in Seattle and Chicago valued at more than $4 million, as well as two properties in Mexico. The most expensive one was a mansion in Bosques de las Lomas, one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Mexico City.

Court documents say that estate was acquired through a network of companies. Among them was Sueño Cumplido, which allegedly handled the transfer of the private jet; Five Star Legacy Trust, which bought the Seattle and Chicago condos; and 5 Branches Holding Company, accused of managing various international assets of Lozano, including Quetzal International Services and other entities registered in Colombia.

Lozano had other investments, such as Amiga Lawyers and Ally Lozano, companies dedicated to training lawyers in her business strategies. Between 2019 and 2021 those firms reportedly billed more than $1.7 million teaching courses on methods developed by the attorney herself.

Despite the firm’s growth, much of the work fell to staff with knowledge of immigration law but without licenses to practice law. Files indicate the firm presented them to clients as “licensed” to create the impression they were authorized attorneys.

The firm also relied on lawyers based in Mexico and Colombia to review files and communicate with migrants, making them believe they were in the United States and able to practice here.

“There are no words to explain the impact this attorney’s actions will have,” Barraza said. “She expedited the deportations of many people she was supposed to defend.”

The strategic use of the Virgin of Guadalupe

In one of the promotional videos that still circulate on social media, Lozano explained the presence of a large painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the entrance to her Seattle office. Many clients, she said, came to the firm to leave roses and flowers while staff lit candles “to give thanks for all the good outcomes and also to ask for help in the cases.”

That image influenced the decision of the couple Erika Mejía Sánchez and Juan Manuel Villanueva Vega, parents of five U.S. citizens. The pair said they trusted the firm “in part because of Lozano’s use of the Virgin of Guadalupe in her marketing materials and the connotations associated with the Virgin.”

They paid more than $32,000 hoping to obtain some immigration relief. Before turning to Lozano, several lawyers had advised them not to file any petitions because of their multiple irregular entries into the country. They feared a judge would deny their request and that the case would attract ICE’s attention. But Lozano offered them a different path, almost a miracle: she assured them they would receive a work permit in just six months and permanent residency within a year.

The strategy relied on a lie that Lozano deemed compassionate: filing a VAWA petition based on false accusations of abuse by their own daughter. The file included a psychological evaluation prepared with misleading information by two companies linked to Lozano: En Solidaridad and Salud Total.

Villanueva Vega’s application for permanent residency, as with other clients of the firm, was denied by immigration authorities. Now this Mexican national faces the outcome he sought to avoid: a deportation process.

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