News Releases and Statements

Lucinda Lyons Shackleford, 53, of Charlotte, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of forced labor and document servitude, which is the withholding of an individual's legal documents, following an investigation by U.S. ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

A Pawtucket, R.I., man was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Providence for posing as an immigration attorney and claiming he was a federal immigration agent, threatening to have individuals deported. Audeliz Villegas, 45, pleaded guilty in federal court in June to four counts of wire fraud and one count of impersonating a federal agent.

More than 70 criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and immigration violators are facing deportation and criminal charges following a four-day enforcement operation in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan.

James Degelau was arrested in 2008 when trying to cross into Canada from Michigan and was found to be in possession of a laptop computer containing images of child pornography.

A Tennessee resident received more than 8,400 dollars from special agents with ICE's HSI on Wednesday, following a joint investigation against fraudulent telemarketers.

ICE HSI special agents, working in conjunction with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), conducted search and arrest actions in Cobb County Thursday and Friday.

Fourteen individuals will make their initial appearance Friday morning in federal court here after being arrested by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) on criminal charges related to an investigation into the manufacture and purchase of counterfeit identity and employment documents.

A Guatemalan man was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 years in federal prison without parole for trafficking heroin into the United States from Mexico, announced U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno, Southern District of Texas.

In a ceremony held at the French ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2011, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned to the French government a rare painting by master impressionist Edgar Degas that had been stolen and lost to the world for nearly 40 years.

Five local convicted criminal sex offenders were arrested on Wednesday by officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in an operation targeting convicted criminal aliens.

Daniel Toler, 49, collected graphic images and videos of prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

A suburban Twin Cities business is the first Minnesota member of a nationwide program by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure a legal and more secure work force.

A truck driver pleaded guilty here Thursday to drug smuggling charges after admitting he smuggled tons of marijuana through a sophisticated 600-yard underground cross-border passageway discovered two months ago by federal agents on the San Diego Tunnel Task Force.

Tyson Foods Inc. is the newest member of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) nationwide program designed to encourage businesses to collaborate with ICE and use hiring best practices to ensure they are maintaining a lawful workforce.

Doing What's Right! is more than a slogan for Tyson Foods Inc., the newest member of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE).

Waheed Islam, also known as "Walter Missouri, Jr.," 43, of Manchester, Conn., pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford, Conn., to one count of possession of body armor by a violent felon.

The third of three convicted for his part in an alien smuggling organization which resulted in the dehydration death of a Mexican national in Brooks County in 2009 was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison.

A joint federal-state law enforcement operation Wednesday morning led to the arrest of 27 people linked to a Los Angeles-area street gang known as Lennox 13, some of whom are named in a federal racketeering indictment that alleges the gang is a criminal enterprise that has engaged in violent crimes, extortion and narcotics trafficking.

Paul Gary Pinkston, 27, of Glen Burnie, Md., was sentenced to 20 months in prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release, for possession of child pornography. On May 4, 2009, special agents with ICE HSI executed a search warrant at Pinkston's residence, after an investigation showed that he subscribed to a fee-based child pornography website.

On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a federal information sharing capability in Athens County that helps federal immigration officials use biometrics to identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime.

David Balgobin, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracting officer was sentenced to six months in prison on Jan. 18 for awarding three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contracts to companies he controlled.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers removed Branko Popic, who served in the army of the breakaway Republic of Srpska during the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the painting Leda ed il Cigno, by Italian Renaissance painter Lelio Orsi, was ordered forfeited to the government as property brought into the United States in violation of customs laws.

The garbage truck driver in a July 2008 fatal collision with a bicyclist in Washington, D.C., was sentenced to 31 months in prison for illegally re-entering the United States after being removed because he was convicted of an aggravated felony.