Christian Palacios stood center stage at Los Sanchez Restaurant in Crystal on a recent summer evening, calling up families who were reuniting with their loved ones for the first time in decades.
One by one, Palacios announced relatives from Mexico who appeared from behind a stage and embraced their loved ones living in Minnesota. Emotional music played as the local family members thrust roses into their relatives’ arms and recorded the celebration. Many broke down in tears.
“Aplauso, por favor! (Applaud, please!),” Palacios’ voice boomed into the microphone after each reunification.
For the 10 families celebrating, the night was the culmination of a yearslong process that cost each of them thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
Palacios’ company, Nueva Vision Latinoamerica, charges immigrants in the United States to obtain 10-year U.S. tourist visas for their relatives in Mexico. Several of Palacios’ clients reached out to Sahan Journal to denounce the company as a scam. Some have paid as much as $2,700 and waited as long as eight years for their relatives to receive a visa; immigration experts say the cost should not exceed a few hundred dollars and that the wait is typically about a year.
The vast majority of Nueva Vision’s clients are undocumented immigrants, according to one of Palacios’ former business associates. That makes it nearly impossible for those clients to travel back to their birth country to visit their relatives.
“I hired her because she brought my friends’ parents here, and I thought she would help me bring mine,” said Priscila, a former client of Nueva Vision. “She knew about our status here.”
Several former Nueva Vision clients filed complaints with their local police departments earlier this year. The dispute made its way up the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, which opened an investigation into the company earlier this year that remains ongoing. It also devolved into Palacios and her former business associate, Raúl Zepeda, blaming one another for the company’s troubles.
Palacios maintains that most of her clients come out happy and that she is not concerned about the attorney general’s investigation.
“I have nothing to hide,” Palacios told Sahan Journal.
Former Nueva Vision clients speak out
Palacios isn’t without her supporters. Abi Mendoza was among Palacios’ clients celebrating at Los Sanchez Restaurant. She paid Nueva Vision to bring over her father and aunt, a process that involved a lot of fits and starts. It took five years and cost between $10,000 and $15,000 for the two visas, Mendoza said.
According to the U.S. State Department, the cost of a 10-year tourist visa alone is $185. It usually takes between 12 to 18 months to obtain one, according to Ana Pottratz Acosta, an immigration lawyer and professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law whose family members have obtained tourist visas.
At one point earlier this year, a frustrated Mendoza even shared a viral post on Facebook accusing Palacios of scamming customers.
“They were saying she stole a lot of money and bought a mansion,” Mendoza said regarding her decision to share the Facebook post. “I shared the story. She messaged me right away.”
Palacios fast-tracked the process for the visas and regained Mendoza’s trust. Now, Mendoza doesn’t believe the rumors anymore and is even planning to use Palacios’ services for more of her relatives. Mendoza characterized Nueva Vision’s work with families like hers as vital.
“I think we do need it,” Mendoza said.
Other Nueva Vision clients paint a different picture.
“We want her to pay for what she’s done,” said Martha, who paid Nueva Vision $1,500 over four years to get her mother-in-law a tourist visa, which never happened.
Martha’s husband hasn’t seen his 74-year-old mother, who lives in Veracruz, Mexico, for 26 years. Losing out on the money was a hardship for Martha’s family — “We work hard for it,” she said — yet, she said she “would have paid double” for the guarantee of reuniting her husband with his mother.
“That’s how we Latinos are,” Martha said regarding the prioritization of family.
Instead, her husband is “sad and disappointed,” and his mother is depressed, Martha said.
Martha and four other women living in southern Minnesota — Taide, Priscila, Sandra and Maribel — banded together to share their stories with Sahan Journal. They each filed reports with the police against Nueva Vision alleging fraud. Sahan Journal is only publishing the women’s first names because they are undocumented immigrants from Mexico.
Taide tried to get her parents a visa through Nueva Vision starting in 2019. Since then, she’s paid the company $2,700. She cut off her relationship with the company earlier this year after what she said were too many broken promises from Palacios.
“It causes me anger, because I could have used that money for my kids,” Taide said. “My daughters are in college. They didn’t ask for help because they saw my situation, but I’d prefer them to have it than this woman for her surgeries, her house and everything else she bought.”
The five women said several other Nueva Vision clients across the Twin Cities metro area filed similar police reports this year, which eventually sparked the Minnesota Attorney General’s investigation.
Attorney general spokesperson Brian Evans confirmed the investigation and encouraged anyone “who believes they’ve been harmed” by Nueva Vision Latinoamerica or Nueva Vision Multiservicios, a tax preparation company that Palacios also runs, to file a complaint online with the office.
Palacios defended her work in an interview with Sahan Journal, comparing her company’s work to a travel agency and blaming troubles on Zepeda.
“All these people are being manipulated by Raúl Zepeda,” Palacios said, referring to her former business partner. “He’s the one behind all this because he wants to tarnish my image.”
Zepeda denied the allegations.
“Several people have approached me and contacted me over the last year to talk about this, and I’ve helped them with some information and things like that. For example, asking them to call the embassy to confirm the status of their appointments, but I haven’t sought anyone out for this,” Zepeda told Sahan Journal. “The truth is, I don’t want anything to do with [Palacios]; I think she’s a dangerous person.”
Palacios argued that if the women who complained to Sahan Journal would have stayed on with Nueva Vision as clients, they likely would have eventually received visas for their relatives.
Palacios said Nueva Vision doesn’t guarantee that any of her clients’ relatives will receive a visa.
“We never guarantee success with our services, only securing an appointment at the U.S. consulate to apply for a visa,” Palacios said. “After that, it’s no longer up to us.”
‘I thought it was worth it to see my mother’
Sandra became a Nueva Vision client in 2017 after meeting Palacios at Church of the Incarnation-Sagrado Corazon in south Minneapolis. She used the company in hopes of getting a visa for her mother, whom she hasn’t seen since she left Mexico in 2005 for the United States.
Sandra estimates that she’s paid Nueva Vision about $1,700 over the last eight years. The initial charges Sandra paid were vague in explanation, such as “subscription fee,” which cost $164, and “rights to a visa fee,” which cost $470. Similar fees were charged over the course of many years.
“I never questioned those payments,” Sandra told Sahan Journal. “I thought it was worth it to see my mother”
It all culminated last fall with Nueva Vision abruptly cancelling a long-planned U.S embassy interview for her mother in Guadalajara, Mexico, that Sandra had paid an extra $650 “adjustment” fee to secure. According to Sandra, Palacios explained that the embassy rescheduled the appointment, and that it wasn’t Nueva Vision’s fault.
“She posted a statement from the embassy, but it didn’t feel legit,” Sandra said. “I felt disillusioned and frustrated because my mother had the idea she was coming.”
Sandra’s mother still hasn’t obtained a visa. The payments have been a hardship for Sandra, who worked in a factory at the time.
The same thing happened to Maribel, 44, who became a Nueva Vision client in 2019. She wanted to get a visa for her father, whom she hasn’t seen since 2006. Her father, who lives in Veracruz, Mexico, had an appointment with the U.S. embassy in the fall of 2024. Maribel said Palacios told her the U.S. embassy abruptly canceled the meeting. She now believes that Palacios never scheduled the meeting in the first place.
“It is very frustrating,” Maribel told Sahan Journal. “[Palacios] said [my father] had an appointment, and I thought, ‘Alright, I get to see my dad.’ It was canceled one week beforehand. Why does she play with our emotions?”
Maribel, a stay-at-home mom whose husband works at a factory, estimates that she paid Nueva Vision $1,300 over several years. She ended her relationship with Nueva Vision earlier this year.
Taide offered a similar story, claiming that Nueva Vision also abruptly canceled multiple U.S. Embassy appointments for both of her parents that were lined up last year. Taide, 44, said she then came across an investigation into Nueva Vision published by Conexión Migrante, a media outlet in Mexico City.
“Afterwards, I started to accept that I was being scammed,” Taide said.
Zepeda alleged that this is a pattern with Palacios.
“Two or three days before the supposed appointment date, [Palacios] told them the embassy had changed it again, when the embassy doesn’t do that,” he said. “It never changes appointments. Then she charged them more and told them these things were out of her control, that she couldn’t do anything more.”
Priscila, 42, paid $650 over the course of four years to Nueva Vision for a visa for her father, whom she hasn’t seen since 2002. As the process dragged out, Priscila said she would sometimes see social media posts of families being reunited through Nueva Vision.
“I see people online with her and I cry,” said Priscila, who works at a hotel managing housekeepers. “Good for them that they’re successful, but I’m mad about myself. I feel scammed.”
The five women who spoke with Sahan Journal said that Palacios kicked them off of a WhatsApp group she put together for Nueva Vision clients after they started posting concerns. Most of the women also said their relatives sent identification documents to Nueva Vision’s office in Mexico for their visa applications, and haven’t received them back.
‘Notario’ fraud scheme?
Pottratz Acosta, the Mitchell Hamline law professor, raised several questions about Nueva Vision’s business practices.
“This sounds like a notario fraud scheme,” Pottratz Acosta said, noting the high price tag Nueva Vision charges. “I’m highly skeptical of this kind of service.”
The type of visa that Nueva Vision helps clients obtain is a B1/B2 visa. They’re issued for tourism and last up to 10 years, allowing the visa holder to visit the United States for up to six months at a time.
The process of obtaining a B1/B2 tourist visa is relatively straightforward, Pottratz Acosta said. For one, it does not require someone in the United States to sponsor the applicant.
“It really only involves making an appointment with the consulate in your home country and then showing up for a consulate interview, where someone from the Department of State interviews you and then decides whether or not to approve your application for a visa,” Pottratz Acosta said.
Pottratz Acosta added that it could be useful for applicants to use a service that helps them put together visa application materials to “show that the relative applying for the visa has the means to pay for all their expenses while they’re here in the U.S.”
She added that President Donald Trump administration’s hostility to immigration likely results in the U.S. State Department adding scrutiny to the B1/B2 process.
Palacios said Nueva Vision provides more services than just helping clients’ relatives obtain visas.
“The job also includes organizing the information and filling out the applicant’s forms, because they often don’t know how to do it, and that’s something I know how to do,” Palacios said. “It also includes teaching them how to conduct an interview, what to say when speaking to the person at the consulate, what not to say — all of that.”
Palacios added that Nueva Vision takes care of transportation to the embassy, airplane tickets and hotel stays if necessary. With clients from all over the United States, the costs of her services also depend on which state the relative is visiting.
She holds reunification ceremonies for clients in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Oftentimes, local Spanish media outlets in those cities cover the reunifications. Other times, Palacios can be seen on a Chicago podcast promoting Nueva Vision alongside Mexican musician Armando Celis as he promotes a tequila brand.
Palacios said she added the reunification ceremony as the culmination of the visa process to “organize a special event to celebrate people reuniting.”
“I felt like doing nothing about it was downplaying the situation,” Palacios said. “So the idea of organizing these ceremonies came to mind, and people love it and are very grateful, and it makes them feel special.”
The cost per client for the event, she added, is $3,000.
Palacios blames former business partner
Born in the United States, Palacios grew up in Mexico in the state of Morelos, where most Mexican immigrants in Minnesota came from. She moved back to the United States in 2005.
Palacios, 34, has built a high profile in the Twin Cities Latino community. On top of Nueva Vision, which also offers tax services to clients, she is the owner of Mi Mexico Querido, a south Minneapolis Mexican restaurant which also has a location in the downtown St. Paul skyway. She also officiates weddings.
Palacios is also a frequent fixture in popular local Spanish-speaking media and social media, including La Raza radio.
Toward the end of the 2010s, Palacios realized that many Latino immigrants in Minnesota and beyond hadn’t seen some of their family members since coming to the United States. With her experience living and doing business in both countries, she thought she was the right person to help immigrant families. She founded Nueva Vision in 2019.
“At first, we did it almost as a hobby,” Palacios said. “But when things started going well, we decided to dedicate ourselves 100 percent to the business.”
She founded the company with Zepeda, who lived in Morelos, Mexico, at the time. They split their duties between countries: Palacios would find immigrant families in the United States, and Zepeda would connect with their relatives in Mexico and guide them through the visa process. The partnership worked well for the first few years.
Palacios now blames all of her company’s troubles on Zepeda. She accused him of embezzling 9 million Mexican pesos, about $500,000 in current U.S. currency, from her company “and running off with the money.” She also said he was also behind the social media firestorm that accused her of scamming her clients.
“He’s manipulating these people to say these things, and you, the media, are only interested in that and not in all the people I’ve helped over the past few years,” Palacios said.
Palacios maintained that the vast majority of her customers seeking visas are satisfied, and that her work in the community isn’t limited to just Nueva Vision.
“I paid rent to people who couldn’t afford it during the pandemic,” she said. “I’ve made donations, gifts, organized celebrations, and you, the media, aren’t interested in any of that. The same thing with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office; you’re only interested in the negative.”
In an interview with Sahan Journal, Zepeda, who now lives in Mexico City, denied Palacios’ allegations. He said Palacios worked in the United States finding clients while he worked in Mexico handling the paperwork and setting up appointments at the consulate for the clients’ relatives. Then, he would coach the relatives on what to say during the interview.
Nueva Vision made its true profits from charging people for airfare to get to the United States, Zepeda said.
As business and profits increased, Zepeda said, Palacios started to live a lavish lifestyle that included expensive cars, a nice home and travel.
“Her life had become more expensive, and she needed to pay for it,” Zepeda said.
Then the COVID pandemic hit and the embassies closed temporarily. By that time, Nueva Vision had worked with 11,000 clients, 4,000 of whom still had relatives who needed interview appointments in order to obtain visas, according to Zepeda. Palacios still wanted to take on and charge more clients. As the number of clients increased, Palacios started telling many of them that their relatives’ appointments with the U.S. Embassy were canceled at the last minute, Zepeda said.
“The embassy doesn’t do that. It never changes appointments,” he said. “Then she charged them more and told them these things were out of her control, that she couldn’t do anything more.”
Around this time, according to Zepeda, Palacios also started significantly increasing the cost of airplane tickets beyond their actual price, charging customers up to as much as $4,500 per person. Zepeda stopped working with Palacios in 2021 and now runs his own similar business. He said he never charges his clients more than $1,200 for airplane tickets.
When he left Nueva Vision, Zepeda said, he started getting death threats via phone calls from random people.
“I received calls, text messages and messages on social media,” he said. “I decided to leave Morelos for that very reason, and eventually the harassment stopped.”
Palacios said she also gets death threats and harassment online, all of which she attributes to Zepeda. Some people have even come to her home to harass her, she said.
Troubled finances
Court records show that Palacios’ bank recently sued her for back payments on a 2022 Bentley Bentayga, which she purchased for $183,000, and a 2021 Dodge Charger Hellfire, which she purchased for $93,000. She resolved both of those matters earlier this year.
Palacios was also late in paying $2,100 in property taxes earlier this year on her $600,000 Woodbury home, according to Washington County tax records.
In 2023, the landlord of the Bloomington building where Nueva Vision is located sued Palacios for $426,000 in back rent for a space in the strip mall where she planned to open a new branch of her Mi Mexico Querido restaurant. Palacios accused her landlords of leasing her a space that did not meet code for a restaurant. The matter was resolved out of court.
Palacios said her critics are using her past financial troubles to unfairly attack her.
“They’re meddling in my personal finances,” she said, “I don’t live like a queen, but I believe I have the right to the life I want.”
Palacios’ five former clients in southern Minnesota, however, hope she’ll be held accountable through the attorney general’s investigation.
Martha said she doesn’t care about getting her money back.
“I just want to see her stop playing with people’s emotions,” Martha said of Palacios.
For some, the window to bring their relatives to the United States has closed. When Priscila started the process six years ago to reunite with her father, he was 65. But now, his health has deteriorated and he can no longer walk or travel. She ended her relationship with Nueva Vision in 2024.
“I told him we couldn’t do it anymore,” Priscila said through tears.
Sahan Journal reporter Alfonzo Galvan contributed to this report.
