ICE agent gets 3 years for helping immigrants avoid deportation

Tresa Baldas | Detroit Free Press

An ICE agent was sentenced to three years in prison Monday for his role in an immigration bribery scheme, though his lawyer maintains he never betrayed the U.S. as prosecutors claimed and never took "a dime" from anyone.

"He never, ever sold out his country," defense attorney Art Weiss told the Free Press after the sentencing hearing. "I think the government painted him with too broad a brush ... He didn't get anything out of it."

The defendant is Clifton Divers, 50, of Detroit, a former ICE agent accused of helping at least four immigrants avoid deportation by pretending they were informants assisting in federal criminal prosecutions.

According to Weiss, Divers did think they were informants and had no idea that the immigrants were secretly paying bribes to their lawyer, who, records show, had promised to help his clients avoid deportation in exchange for money. That lawyer, Birmingham attorney Charles Busse, previously pleaded guilty to his role in the bribery scheme and is serving a three-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors allege that Busse and Divers were in on the scheme together, and that Divers used his top clearance with Homeland Security to help immigrants cheat deportation. And the reason Divers did this, prosecutors claim, was to help his attorney friend get rich.

For his part, records show, Divers got no money. But his lawyer friend profited handsomely, prosecutors said.

According to court records, Busse pocketed up to $50,000 in cash bribes from immigration clients from Iraq, Mexico and Albania, telling them it would guarantee them the right to stay in the U.S. He pulled this off by pretending the immigrants were informants with inside information about drug crimes or terrorist activity, when he was really making up the crimes, records show.

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Divers, meanwhile, was never accused of accepting or receiving bribes. Rather, prosecutors said Divers got free legal services from Busse in exchange for his help: Divers helped the immigrants qualify for deferred deportation status due to their supposed role as informants cooperating with federal investigations.

Busse also gave Divers' then-high school daughter summer jobs in his law office, prosecutors said.

In January, Divers pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy, admitting he misled a fellow agent by not disclosing that Busse was representing an immigrant who was working as an informant. He also admitted to accepting a computer from someone who was seeking a favor.

Weiss said his client committed these crimes during a "hellacious" time in his personal life: he went through a bitter divorce and his father died of cancer.

"When the pressures of his personal life impacted his professional life, he engaged in some lapses of judgment that cost him his career, his job and his friends. He's been shunned by the law enforcement community and now it's going to cost him his freedom," said Weiss, who requested probation for his client. "I felt that he had been punished enough."

The government, which requested a four-year prison sentence, disagrees, arguing Divers "committed an egregious breach" of the public's trust by compromising his top secret clearance to help a lawyer get rich by deceiving desperate immigration clients.

"But for Divers, Busse would not have been able to exploit the overtaxed and broken immigration system in need of reform," prosecutors wrote in court documents. "Nor would Busse have been able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars likewise exploiting the inexperience, trust and desperation of his clients and their families."

Following Monday's sentencing hearing, U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement: “No one is above the law, particularly law enforcement officers in whom we place our trust to maintain the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and professionalism. The citizens of Michigan have the right to expect nothing less.”

Added Department of Homeland Security chief Giovanni Tiano: “Let this sentence stand as an example that the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, is relentlessly committed to eliminating corruption within the department. The DHS OIG will never allow corrupt greed driven individuals to work alongside the proud honest men and women of this department, who risk their lives

every day to protect our national security and keep this country safe.”

Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @Tbaldas