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Sex for Green Card? Immigration Officer Busted
By the Editorial Staff
A U.S. immigration official who allegedly demanded sex from a Colombian woman in exchange for a green card has been arrested, prosecutors said on Saturday.
Isaac Baichu, 46, an adjudicator for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), pleaded not guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges of coercing the 22-year-old Colombian. He was arrested on March 11 after the woman used a mobile phone to record the conversation before the sexual encounter, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Baichu first met with the woman to go over her application at a Long Island immigration office. She was accompanied by her new American husband. During that meeting, Baichu allegedly asked for her cellphone number. Baichu called the woman three days later and summoned her to a private meeting at the parking lot of a local restaurant.
What Baichu didn't know was she was recording the conversation on her cellphone.
CNN aired what it said was the taped conversation obtained by The New York Times :
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FEMALE: “I don't know. Just tell me we're going to be friends. Or?”
MALE: “Be friends. I want sex. I want sex. One or two times. That's all. You get your green card. You won't have to see me anymore.”
CNN quoted prosecutors as saying that what happened next was detailed in the criminal complaint. The woman told prosecutors she attempted to leave the car, but Baichu grabbed her by the arm and told her he expected her to perform oral sex upon him then and there. She said she gave in to his demands due to his position in authority.
Baichu's lawyer, Sally Attia, claimed her client was entrapped. “We have pled not guilty and we deny any wrong doing,” she said.
Baichu was not the first immigration official accused of taking advantage of undocumented immigrants. Wilfredo Vazquez, 35, a former immigration agent in Miami, has been charged with raping a woman he was transferring between detention centers, according to federal prosecutors. He faces charges of sexually assaulting a 39-year-old Jamaican woman on Sept. 21 at his home.
<In 2006, former immigration officer Michael Maxwell testified before Congress on what he described as rampant corruption in the USCIS. Maxwell told the congressional hearing that charges that have been filed against some immigration officials include “soliciting sex for citizenship.”
Baichu, himself an immigrant from Guyana, has handled about 8,000 green card applications at the Garden City, New York, office of the USCIS, officials said. Baichu was arrested after he once again propositioned the woman for sex. That time prosecutors were listening in, too, CNN said.
Baichu faces up to seven years in prison if found guilty, according to prosecutors.
Arizona businesses brace for illegal immigration crackdown
By The Editorial Staff
Arizona set into effect one of the nation's toughest workplace enforcement law on January 1, as new laws targeting employers who hire illegal immigrants began on Tuesday.
Under the law, businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants could face a business license suspension lasting up to 10 days. Second-time violators would have their business licenses permanently revoked.
Officials say the move was aimed at curbing Arizona 's role as the busiest gateway for illegal immigrants into the country. Experts, however, predict that it could be costly to the state's economy with billions of dollars in lost income and taxes.
The law requires businesses to use an otherwise voluntary federal database to verify the employment eligibility of new workers. But opponents of the law say businesses would suffer economic harm in complying with the database requirement, noting it would take staff time and thus money to learn the database and use the system.
Immigrant groups argued the law was an unconstitutional attempt by the state to regulate immigration, adding that the crackdown on employed workers is the sole responsibility of the federal government. State lawyers, however, said the new state law doesn't conflict with federal laws.
Immigration Newsman file photo
Officials say at least one in 10 workers in Arizona is an illegal immigrant and the law was intended to lessen the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border.
In a related development, the Washington Post said that despite an increase in arrests relating to the hiring of illegal workers in 200, only a small fraction of employers have been charged with criminal offenses.
It quoted a year-end analysis by the Department of Homeland Security as saying that in fiscal year 2007, nearly 4,900 arrests were made of illegal workers, phony document suppliers and others, but only 92 arrests were made of owners, human resources officials and supervisors. Of the 4,940 arrests, 4,077 were administrative and 863 were criminal in nature, the Post said.
Cuban immigrant marries 20 men; charged with bigamy
By The Editorial Staff
A Cuban immigrant proved to be the classic June bride. But she's also an April bride, a May bride and a December bride and federal immigration authorities were hot on her tail after prosecutors charged her with bigamy, alleging that she may have married up to 20 men.
Eunice Lopez, 26, faces bigamy charges as prosecutors said she married illegal immigrants from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia between 2002 and 2006 without divorcing any of them.
Michelle Gillen, a reporter for the Miami-based WFOR-TV, said Lopez, who holds a green card and was an immigrant from Cuba, married five men in a span of five days last year. She quoted officials as saying that Lopez may have married up to 20 Hispanics who were having problems with their immigration documents.
Officials said the marriages were often performed by notary publics and the “husbands” may have paid an undisclosed amount to Lopez in exchange for their legal immigration status through marriage to a green card holder.
Lopez reportedly blackmailed the immigrants by threatening to expose them if they didn't give her more money, according to CNN.
In November, a Maryland resident pleaded guilty to marriage fraud, passport fraud and perjury after prosecutors took him to court for allegedly marrying nine immigrants and helping them become permanent U.S. residents, court documents show.
Court documents said James Adjei Kyem, 52, married nine immigrants in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia and New York in a bid to help them change their immigration status and obtain greencards. Officials said Kyem was a naturalized citizen who obtained a change of status also by marriage with a naturalized citizen.
Prosecutors did not say if Kyem received payment for the marriages. They said he was still married when he married one of the immigrants. They said Kyem faces up to 25 years in prison, if found guilty on all of the charges.
Owner of Geno's Steaks gets grilled for 'English Only' sign
By the Editorial Staff
ATLANTA (ImmigrationNewsman.com) — Two small posters requiring immigrants to speak “English only” when placing their orders at a famous cheesesteak shop has triggered complaints of discrimination, leaving its owner getting grilled in a public hearing on Friday. But the shop's owner said there was no intention to offend anyone.
Joey Vento, owner of Geno's Steaks in Philadelphia, defended his policy before the three-member Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, which filed the complaint alleging discrimination.
Vento told the commission that he posted the signs in response to the heated political debate on immigration reform and an increasing number of immigrant customers.
The small blue and white signs, which Vento posted at his shop in Philadelphia in October 2005, told customers: “This is America, when ordering speak in English.”
Critics say the sign reminded citizens about the Jim Crow era when posters that segregated whites from blacks were commonly seen in the southern and border states.
“I am an American of Italian descent,” Vento told CNN during an interview. “If you don't want to assimilate in this country and learn our language, then stay away.”
Camille Charles, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said that Vento's signs gave “a feeling of being unwelcome and being excluded." But Vento says “nobody is getting refused service. We're just asking you politely to speak English.”
The commission is expected to issue a ruling within 2 months, officials said.
''This country is a melting pot, but what makes it work is the English language,'' Vento said. ''I'm not stupid. I would never put a sign out to hurt my business.''
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