Immigration Officer Offered Protection for Sex and Cash
It’s not enough we have the Trump Administration relentlessly waging war on immigrants and the and not doing anything to fix our broken immigration system, there is also the continuing problem of corruption within our Immigration agencies.
Former Immigration officer Arnaldo Echevarria, 40, of the Somerset section of Franklin Township, New Jersey, was sentenced to 7 years in Federal Penitentiary for asking for and accepting sex and also what officials have calculated to be over $75,000 in bribe money to protect illegal immigrants.
With so much effort and energy being spent on attacking the illegal immigrant community and its support system, one has to wonder why the same aggressive approach has not been taken towards government and law enforcement corruption.
The details of Echevarria’s corruption, as reported by Jeff Goldman for NJ.com consisted of Echievarria obtaining employment authorization documents for and employing undocumented immigrants, including his girlfriend, by saying they had been given temporary protected status, a statement quoted from U.S. Attorneys’ Office.
“Why is this kind of corruption not brought up in the news?’ asked Atlanta immigration attorney Glenn Fogle.
“More and more we see our President use social media to slander and attack just about everybody and everything that does not agree with his agenda. However, victimization of innocent people, at the hands of government officials, is completely ignored.” Fogle continued, “It is truly despicable that this type of corruption continues with little to no ramifications. In fact, Trump’s ‘unleashing’ of Immigration Officers to basically act and do as they want encourages abuse of power. Although, this corrupt Immigration Officer may have been brought to justice but how many more are doing things like this on a regular basis due to our broken immigration system?”
Now ex-ICE officer Echievarria has been sentenced to 7 years in federal prison for his corruption. While justice has been served in this instance many feel as Fogle does, that the only true solution is real comprehensive immigration reform and accountability across the board for parties involved.
