A 2016 Department of Homeland Security report found that corruption is so rampant among Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents that they “pose a national security threat.” But this corruption isn’t unique to Border Patrol agents: a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of extorting sex and tens of thousands of dollars from vulnerable undocumented immigrants he employed in his private business.
Arnaldo Echevarria, of Somerset, was convicted in March of bribery, making false statements and harboring an undocumented immigrant.
Attorney Michael Koribanics said Echevarria took full responsibility for his actions in court. He was reviewing whether to appeal the conviction.
Echevarria received $75,000 in bribes from immigrants not in the U.S. legally in exchange for employment authorization documents from 2012 to 2014, prosecutors said, and in one instance he demanded and received sex.
He also was convicted of concealing his girlfriend's immigration status and employing her in his hair salon while lying to ICE officials. He paid his girlfriend and other employees in cash to avoid paperwork, prosecutors said.
Echevarria also lied to his superiors at ICE, after he claimed that his business wouldn’t conflict with his job as a federal immigration agent because he would hire only workers who had permission to work in the U.S. While this climate of lies, deception, and corruption within federal immigration agencies isn’t unique to any one administration, it is one that has recently been emboldened under Donald Trump.
It’s this administration, acting under the direct orders of former Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, that demanded ICE agents wage an anti-immigrant smear campaign, and it’s this administration that wants to do away with hiring standards in order to bring onboard thousands more immigration agents:
Though the number of corrupt agents represents less than 1 percent of CBP’s 44,000 sworn officers—the largest police force in the U.S.—“any amount is bad, and one person alone can do a lot of damage,” John Roth, the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, told The New York Times. “It doesn’t have to be widespread.”
Corrupt officials have given sensitive information to cartels, and waved tons of drugs and thousands of undocumented immigrants through the border in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes. Many operate at official ports of entry, undermining the billions of dollars the government has already spent on fencing, drones, radar, surveillance blimps, agents, and now, perhaps, President Trump’s border wall.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and it’s entire likely there are already more Arnaldo Echevarrias out there sexually assaulting and extorting undocumented immigrants. Under a normal administration, maybe there’d be some congressional oversight here. But these aren’t normal times. So instead, it’s immigrants who have to continue to live in fear as ICE and Border Patrol agents continue to run rampant. At least in this one case, there appears to be some justice.