But before Mr. Tischler boarded the most extreme car of the Trump Train,
he spent time in jail for a scheme that sounds like something out of Jeff Sessions’ wildest nightmares: According to federal prosecutors, Tischler was paid between $300 and $500 a head to promise jobs at fake companies like “Fix Anything Construction and Plumbing” to immigrants who wouldn’t otherwise be able to stay legally in the United States. At least 25,000 immigrants paid as much as $30,000 each to Tischler and his collaborators, often in cash, between 1996 and 2009 to provide the fake job opportunities. Tischler’s role was to “falsely represent to the Department of Labor that [he was] sponsoring aliens for employment,” according to the
indictment.
“This law firm and its associates allegedly exploited the immigration system and carried out one of the largest immigration fraud schemes to have ever been committed in our country,” Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent-in-Charge, James Hayes Jr., said when the fraudsters were arrested in 2011. “Today’s arrests reflect HSI’s commitment to investigating document and benefit fraud and those who try to circumvent our nation’s immigration laws.”
Tischler was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for the scheme and appeared to blame one of his co-conspirators.
“Moiser, you put me in prison. WOW,” he
complained to one, according to a court’s ruling against his appeal of the case.