After Rhode Island court suspends most of illegal alien's 5-year child sex offense sentence, deportation agents nab him

After a Rhode Island court suspended most of an illegal alien's five-year sentence for indecent solicitation of a child, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers last month went after and arrested the "unlawfully present" 45-year-old Nigerian citizen, ICE said.

What are the details?

The Nigerian citizen entered the U.S in New York, New York, on a non-immigrant tourist visa in May 2017, the agency said, adding that he violated the terms of his visa by remaining in the U.S. beyond the authorized time limit.

Rhode Island State Police arrested the Nigerian in July 2019 on the charge of indecent solicitation of a child, ICE said.

But after Rhode Island’s Providence Superior Court convicted the Nigerian national of the charge and sentenced him to five years in prison with six months of home confinement in May 2022, ICE said the court then suspended four and a half years of the sentence.

More from the agency:

Under Rhode Island state law, indecent solicitation of a child penalizes the conduct of soliciting a person under age 18, or someone the defendant believes is under age 18, to engage in various conduct related to child sexual abuse material; possession, creation or dissemination of obscene material; prostitution or any form of sexual conduct. Rhode Island law categorizes the offense as both a felony and a sex offense.

After becoming aware of the convicted sex offender’s presence, deportation officers with ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations arm in Boston located and arrested him without incident on Feb.15 in Rumford, Rhode Island, the agency said.

“Rhode Island is safer with this noncitizen sexual offender off of the streets,” ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons said, according to ICE. “His presence in the community posed a threat to public safety. ERO Boston remains committed to prioritizing the removal of egregious predators from our New England communities.”

The convicted sex offender will be held in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency said.

ICE indicated that the EOIR is a separate entity from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, adding that immigration judges in these courts make rulings based on the merits of each individual case, determining if a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal or eligible for certain forms of relief from removal.

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