Ex-ICE attorney receives sentence after stealing immigrants’ identities

The former chief attorney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Seattle has been slapped with a four-year prison sentence after stealing the identities of immigrants to defraud banks and credit card companies. 

The Justice Department said Raphael Sanchez had pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, CBS News reported Friday.  

{mosads}Sanchez, 44, served as legal counsel for ICE agents and oversaw the deportation and asylum hearings for immigrants in four states. 

But after 17 years of working for the law enforcement agency, Justice Department officials say Sanchez confessed in a plea agreement to intentionally devising “a scheme to defraud aliens in various stages of immigration removal proceedings with ICE.”

“Raphael Sanchez was entrusted with overseeing the honest enforcement of our country’s immigration laws,” acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan told the publication in a statement. “Instead, Sanchez abused that trust, and capitalized on his position at ICE to exploit his victims and line his own pockets.” 

Sanchez used the identities of at least seven immigrants who were facing deportation to forge IDs, prosecutors said.

Sanchez also reportedly stole more than $190,000 from at least six different banks and financial institutions using the stolen identifies.

Sanchez’s sentence arrives as several ICE special agents join Democratic lawmakers in calling for the Trump administration to eliminate the agency as public outrage mounts over the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.