The thing that didn't surprise me about this story is that the corrupt lawyer involved is Hispanic.

Top ICE Lawyer Just Got Jailed For Stealing Immigrants’ Identities: Report, by Lance Perriman, PoliticalDig,July 2, 2018

Raphael A. Sanchez, who until recently served as the chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing the identities of seven immigrants, Law And Crime reports.

According to the indictment obtained by Law And Crime, “Sanchez did knowingly transfer, possess, and use, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person, including the name, Social Security number, and birth date…during and in relation to a felony…wire fraud.”

Court documents reveal that Sanchez’s scheme involved opening credit cards and taking out loans using the personal information of undocumented immigrants who had been targeted by ICE and were undergoing immigration proceedings. This vulnerability–being run through the byzantine U.S. immigration system–made it difficult for the immigrants targeted to detect the theft.

Sanchez’s use of stolen information was also charged as wire fraud over the various banks and other financial institutions who were taken advantage of during the scheme. After being caught, he resigned. Three days later, he took a plea deal admitting to all of the accusations against him. On Thursday, Sanchez’s plea deal was finally signed off on by a federal judge.

From Law And Order:

While overseeing ICE’s legal office in Seattle, Sanchez’s responsibilities bore directly on his criminal scheme. He was in charge of overseeing immigration removal cases in various states. Prosecutors said this made his targets “particularly vulnerable given their status as deported or otherwise excludable.”

The scheme lasted from 2013 to 2017. During this time, Sanchez was already being paid $162,000 per year by the federal government. His net worth hovered around $700,000. Still, he found the time to open bank accounts, utility service accounts and email accounts using names, birthdates, Social Security numbers and more that he stole from ICE databases. Then he created fake drivers’ licenses.[More]