The State Bar of California has seized what it alleged was an unauthorized law practice from a Chula Vista business it accused of wrongly acting as a provider of immigration legal services, but an attorney representing the business said its owner and other employees acted only as immigration consultants who never claimed to be practicing law.
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The State Bar filed a last month in San Diego Superior Court seeking to assume jurisdiction over Superior Immigration Services. The state agency alleged that Gabriel Luna de la Fuente, the owner of the H Street business, was “engaged in the unauthorized practice of law” without being a licensed attorney.
A San Diego judge granted the petition last week, and on Tuesday investigators from the State Bar seized thousands of records from Superior Immigration Services. State Bar officials said the records included roughly 1,300 client files and a computer with a massive amount of data.
Defense attorney Kerry Steigerwalt said he believed the matter was a “big misunderstanding,” and that Luna de la Fuente was offering a valuable service to his customers without ever claiming to be a lawyer.
“Gabriel and everyone else in his office are following and complying with his position as an immigration services consultant,” Steigerwalt said. “He’s not in the business of practicing law. Whenever anyone asks, he tells them he’s not a lawyer. Nowhere on his website does it say he’s a lawyer.”
Steigerwalt said California’s Business and Professions Code allows for non-attorneys such as Luna de la Fuente to act as immigration consultants.
“It’s an incredibly valuable service for many, many people,” said Steigerwalt, who said he is representing Luna de la Fuente and his business for now while evaluating whether to take on the case. “He’s helped untold numbers of people.”
Court records showed that no attorney or representative for Superior Immigration Services was present at the Sept. 3 hearing when a San Diego judge authorized the State Bar to seize the business.
Steigerwalt said that raised potential due-process concerns.
“They yanked this business out from under him,” Steigerwalt said. He added that immigration attorneys are “overwhelmed right now” because of the Trump administration’s crackdown, arguing that immigration services consultants, therefore, “serve a very, very valuable role.”
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The State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel argued that Luna de la Fuente and Superior Immigration Services went beyond simply acting as consultants. Attorneys and investigators from the state agency argued that Luna de la Fuente filled out and filed legal forms for clients and offered clients legal advice. The State Bar also alleged that the business advertised to potential clients that they could speak with “Licenciados,” a Spanish term likely to be understood in context as a licensed attorney.
A woman whose complaint helped launch the State Bar investigation asserted that Luna de la Fuente charged her $4,000 for various services between 2021 and 2024, but did not deliver on his promises to help her and her daughter improve their immigration status.
“The complaining witness trusted Mr. Luna de la Fuente with her family’s future and paid thousands of dollars for immigration services she believed were being handled by qualified professionals,” State Bar Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement. “Instead, her daughter’s immigration petition was never filed, her daughter’s file was withheld, and she was misled into believing licensed attorneys were assisting her.”
According to the State Bar and court documents, that woman filed a complaint against Luna de la Fuente and his business in October 2024. Earlier this year, a State Bar investigator launched an investigation that lasted through August.
That investigation found that Luna de la Fuente “is engaging in the unauthorized practice of law by advertising and providing legal services to the public in California, engaging in legal analysis and studying the facts of clients’ cases, conducting client consultations, giving legal advice to clients, charging legal fees, and falsely claiming that attorneys are available to speak with potential clients,” an attorney for the State Bar wrote in the petition.
Luna de la Fuente “has never been admitted to practice law by the State Bar of California and is not otherwise authorized to practice law,” the State Bar attorney wrote. “(He) is also not being supervised by any licensed attorney.”
Superior Immigration Services is the fifth allegedly unauthorized law practice the State Bar has seized this year, according to news releases from the state agency. In 2024, the State Bar seized The Law Office of Maria Leanos, alleging that the El Cajon woman was offering immigration and family legal services without a law license.
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