The trial was 3 weeks long and included witnesses and victims including child soldiers that described the most horrific crimes. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 15, 2018 and he faces 110 years in prison. Oh yeah, a $4 million fine in USD.
He was arrested in 2014 in Collingdale, Pennsylvania. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Liberian war criminal living in Delaware County convicted of immigration fraud and perjury
PHILADELPHIA – On July 3, 2018, a defendant in Collingdale, Pennsylvania was found guilty by a federal jury of immigration fraud and perjury charges, following a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) led investigation, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, 72, lied on his application for U.S. citizenship by denying that he advocated the overthrow of any government by force or violence and by denying that he ever persecuted any person because of membership in a social group or their political opinion.
Woewiyu is a founder and the former Minister of Defense, chief spokesperson, and negotiator for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which was an armed rebel group led by Charles Taylor and committed to removing the Samuel Doe government forcibly from power in Liberia in the late 1980s and 1990s. On numerous occasions over the years, Woewiyu publicly confirmed his prominent position in the NPFL and advocated the overthrow of the Doe government by force or violence.
During the defendant’s tenure, the NPFL conducted a particularly heinous and brutal military campaign, characterized by torture, rape, forced sexual slavery, conscription of child soldiers, and murder. The jury heard evidence from almost twenty Liberians who lived through Liberia’s notoriously brutal first civil war, from 1989 through 1995. At trial, multiple individuals testified about being forced to become child soldiers under Woewiyu and the NPFL. Additionally, the jury heard testimony about NPFL soldiers cutting off victims’ body parts in front of Woewiyu, while others described checkpoints with skulls and severed heads on stakes (some still dripping with blood) and intestines for ropes, as well as the ethnically based massacre of a village at the hands of the NPFL.
“Today’s verdict clearly demonstrates that this nation will never be a safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals,” said Marlon V. Miller, Special Agent in Charge of HSI Philadelphia. “HSI will not allow our country to be a place where individuals seeking to distance themselves from their pasts can hide or evade detection.”
Since approximately Jan. 13, 1972, Woewiyu has had Lawful Permanent Resident status in the United States. On Jan. 23, 2006, Woewiyu applied for U.S. citizenship by submitting a Form N-400. On that form, and in his immigration in-person interview, Woewiyu swore and certified under the penalty of perjury that, among other things, he had never advocated (either directly or indirectly) the overthrow of any government by force or violence, and that he had never persecuted (either directly or indirectly) any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
After a three-week trial, the jury began its deliberations on Monday, July 2. The jury returned a verdict on July 3, finding the defendant guilty of two counts of fraudulently attempting to obtain citizenship, two counts of fraud in immigration documents, two counts of false statements in relation to naturalization, and five counts of perjury.
“The defendant’s tenure as Minister of Defense for the NPFL was marked by almost unimaginable violence and brutality,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “He attempted to evade all accountability for his gruesome and horrific crimes by fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship. Due to the hard work and perseverance of our prosecutors and law enforcement partners, he has nowhere left to hide. Finally, this defendant has been brought to justice. I hope the conviction today can provide some comfort, however belated, to all of his victims and their families.”
Since 2003, ICE has arrested more than 410 individuals for human rights-related violations of the law under various criminal and/or immigration statutes. During that same period, ICE obtained deportation orders against and physically removed 908 known or suspected human rights violators from the United States. Additionally, ICE has facilitated the departure of an additional 122 such individuals from the United States.
Currently, HSI has more than 135 active investigations into suspected human rights violators and is pursuing more than 1,750 leads and removals cases involving suspected human rights violators from 95 different countries. Since 2003, the HRVWCC has issued more than 75,000 lookouts for individuals from more than 110 countries and stopped over 260 human rights violators and war crimes suspects from entering the U.S.
ICE is committed to rooting out known or suspected human rights violators who seek a safe haven in the United States. ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center investigates human rights violators who try to evade justice by seeking shelter in the United States, including those who are known or suspected to have participated in persecution, war crimes, genocide, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the use or recruitment of child soldiers. These individuals may use fraudulent identities or falsified records to enter the country and attempt to blend into communities in the United States.
Category Archives: FBI
Smart TV’s vs. Your Privacy
It is all getting quite tiresome.It is a cyber war you are in and you don’t know it.
There is Facebook sharing your data with foreign entities and governments. Then the NSA announced it was deleting 685 million personal records.
Then it was Siri and Alexa. Then we are told that Google is reading your GMail. And Google defends the practice.
Smart TVs are spying on you
If you watch television on an internet-connected TV, it may be watching you back.
Data-slurpers: The New York Times took a close look at the rise of services that track viewers’ watching habits—in particular Samba TV, which has claimed to gather second-by-second information from software on 13.5 million smart TVs in the US, this includes brand like smart TV Samsung, LG and Samba
Been here before: Last year, the Federal Trade Commission fined Vizio for $2.2 million over a similar issue. But that was because Vizio sold its data to third parties without users’ consent. Samba pays TV manufacturers like Sony and Philips to carry its software, but doesn’t sell its data. Instead, Samba uses it to sell targeted ads.
Why it matters: You may rip your TV’s plug out of the wall in horror. Or you may not care (Samba TV has said that 90 percent of users agree to turn the service on). Either way, this kind of thing could be going on in your living room—and the companies behind it aren’t exactly going out of their way to let you know about it.
*** The New York Times was not the most recent reporting of this. In fact several media outlets sounded the alarm back in 2017.
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that Vizio used 11 million televisions to spy on its customers. The television maker agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a case with the FTC and the New Jersey attorney general’s office after the agencies accused it of secretly collecting — and selling — data about its customers’ locations, demographics and viewing habits.
With the advent of “smart” appliances, customers and consumer advocates have raised concerns about whether the devices could be sending sensitive information back to their manufacturers. The FTC says the Vizio case shows how a television or other appliance might be telling companies more than their owners are willing to share.
“Before a company pulls up a chair next to you and starts taking careful notes on everything you watch (and then shares it with its partners), it should ask if that’s O.K. with you,” Kevin Moriarty, an attorney with the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, wrote in a blog post. “Vizio wasn’t doing that, and the FTC stepped in.”
As part of the settlement, Vizio neither confirmed nor denied wrongdoing.
“Today, the FTC has made clear that all smart-TV makers should get people’s consent before collecting and sharing television viewing information, and Vizio now is leading the way,” Vizio’s general counsel, Jerry Huang, said of the settlement.
Although some consumers might not recognize the name Vizio, most have probably watched something on a Vizio television. The Irvine, Calif.-based firm, which Chinese firm LeEco recently announced it would buy, is the most popular TV maker in the United States. With 20 percent of the U.S. market, it made about 1 in 5 TVs sold here in 2016. LeEco has broad ambitions in the consumer space, with businesses that also produce a Netflix-style media service, smartphones and even cars.
According to the lawsuit, Vizio was literally watching its watchers — capturing “second-by-second information” about what people viewed on its smart TVs. That included data from cable, broadband, set-top boxes, over-the-air broadcasts, DVDs and streaming devices. Vizio also is accused of linking demographic information to the data and selling the data — including users’ sex, age and income — to companies that do targeted advertising.
[Did you just open a brand new home hub? Read this first.]
Vizio said in its statement that it never paired viewing information with data that identified individual users but used viewing data only in “the ‘aggregate’ to create summary reports measuring viewing audiences or behaviors.”
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ordered Vizio to pay $1.5 million to the FTC and $1 million to the New Jersey attorney general’s office; Vizio won’t have to pay $300,000 of that unless it violates the order in the future.
The part of the settlement paid to the FTC reflects the amount that Vizio probably made from collecting and selling the customer information. Vizio will delete all the data it collected through the feature before March 2016. It must also prominently display its data collection and privacy policies to consumers and create a program to make sure its partners follow those policies.
The Bombing Plot in Paris Reveals Wider Iranian Threat
Tower: Two Iranian nationals, recently arrested by France and Germany, will be extradited to Belgium in connection to a terror plot that targeted an Iranian opposition rally outside of Paris, Reuters reported Wednesday.
The rally, which took place Saturday, was held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition group. Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, spoke at the rally calling for the removal of the regime’s rulers.
On Saturday, Belgian authorities arrested an Iranian couple who had 500 grams of a homemade explosive and a detonator in their car.
France has arrested a man of Iranian origin and Germany had arrested an Austria-based Iranian diplomat. According to Reuters, Belgium asked France and Germany to extradite their suspects. A European intelligence source told Reuters that Belgium was taking the lead in the investigation.
On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of France, Germany, and Belgium to protest the arrest of the Iranian diplomat. Earlier in the day, Iran had also protested to France over allowing the NCRI meeting to take place on French soil. Iran considers the group to be a terrorist group.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed the European claims about a terror plot, saying that the arrest was part of a plot by the United States and Israel to damage European-Iranian relations. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif similarly referred to the charges as a “sinister false flag ploy.”
Iran has been accused in the paste of planning terror attacks, especially targeting opponents of the regime, on European soil. In November of last year, an advocate for Iranian-Arabs was fatally shot in the Hague. In 2012, an al Qaeda terrorist testified in court that Iran facilitated the travel of him and his accomplices to carry out terror attacks in Europe.
In one of the most notorious of these cases, Iranian agents entered a Berlins restaurant and killed three Kurdish activists and wounded several others in a hail of gunfire. The conviction of the assassins, who were tied to the regime, led to a rupture in relations between Germany and Iran.
*** Deeper dive:
An Iranian diplomat and members of what authorities described as an “Iranian sleeper cell” were arrested this week in Belgium, Germany and France, as they were allegedly planning to a bomb a high-level meeting in Paris. The arrests came after a complex investigation by several European intelligence agencies and were announced by Belgium’s Minister of the Interior, Jan Jambon.
The operation against the alleged sleeper cell began on Saturday, June 30, when members of Belgium’s Special Forces Group, stopped a Mercedes car in Brussels. The car was carrying a married Belgian couple of Iranian descent, named in media reports as Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33. According to the Belgian Ministry of the Interior, Nasimeh N. was found to be carrying 500 grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosive and a detonator inside a toiletries bag. On the following day, Sunday, July 1, German police arrested Assadollah A., an Iranian diplomat stationed in Iran’s embassy in Vienna, Austria. According to reports, the diplomat was driving a rental car in the southeastern German state of Bavaria, heading to Austria. On the same day, a fourth person, who has not been named, was arrested by authorities in France, reportedly in connection to the other three arrests.
The four detainees were in contact with each other and were allegedly working for the Iranian government. All four have been charged with an alleged foiled plot to bomb the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that took place last Saturday, June 30, in a Paris suburb. The National Council of Resistance of Iran is a France-based umbrella group of Iranian dissidents, led by Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a militant group that has roots in radical Islam and Marxism. Between 1970 and 1976, the group assassinated six American officials in Iran and in 1970 tried to kill the United States ambassador to the country. It initially supported the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but later withdrew its support, accusing the government of Ayatollah Khomeini of “fascism”. It continued its operations from exile, mainly from Iraq, where its armed members were trained by the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Arab leftist groups.
Until 2009, the European Union and the United States officially considered the MEK a terrorist organization. But the group’s sworn hatred of the government in Iran brought it close to Washington after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. By 2006, the US military was openly collaborating with MEK forces in Iraq, and in 2012 the group was dropped from the US Department of State’s foreign terrorist organizations. Today the group enjoys open protection from the EU and the US. According to Belgian authorities, the four members of the Iranian sleeper cell were planning to bomb the MEK-sponsored NCRI meeting in Paris under instructions by the Iranian government. Conference participants included over 30 senior US officials, including US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who addressed the meeting. Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime minister, also spoke at the conference.
Speaking in Brussels this week, Belgium’s Interior Minister Jambon praised the country’s intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies for foiling the alleged bomb plot in Paris. But Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, dismissed claims of an Iranian sleeper cell as “fake news” and described reports of a foiled bomb attack as “a sinister false flag plot”.
Awan Gets Wrist Slap, DWS Dances
The Washington Post submits this Pakistani IT scandal in the Democrat caucus in the House of Representatives is fabricated, yet WaPo never investigated or reported a word of the case.
This case is one of the most obscure, fraudulent secret cases in DC with only one media source doing good work, The Daily Caller.
Seems Awan took a little plea deal with a slap on the wrist and Debbie Wasserman Schultz dances in celebration. That is unless the Feds got something out of Awan to go after lil miss Debbie or the others. There are plenty of others.
*** Awan pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal bank fraud in a plea deal where prosecutors said they “uncovered no evidence” that Awan “violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems.”
During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington, Awan pleaded guilty to making a false statement on a loan application. As part of the deal, the prosecution dropped fraud charges against Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi. (This judge by the way, from Jamaica was appointed by Obama, read more on her here.)
The other swampiness continues….
The case has generated interest from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have suggested Awan could have been involved in a cyber breach operation. But prosecutors said Tuesday they investigated allegations of misconduct by Awan while on the job in Congress and determined federal charges were not warranted.
“Particularly, the government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House members’ offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information,” the prosecution said in the plea deal.
Prosecutors said the government conducted a “thorough investigation of those allegations.” More here.
***
But hold on…there is missing computer and electronic devices. Is this another Hillary type case?
Over 40 offices in the House of Representatives may have fallen victim to an “IT security violation,” according to a secret memo from top congressional law enforcement to the Committee on House Administration.
The memo, written in part by Paul Irving, the House’s sergeant at arms, detailed the disappearance of a server for the House Democratic Caucus following its marking as evidence in a cybersecurity probe. Imran Awan, email server administrator to former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and members of his family had logged into the server more than 7,000 times between 2015 and 2016 without proper authorization.
Since then, the memo alleges, the caucus server holding emails from lawmakers has been replaced by a lookalike, but the original is gone.
*** More detail:
A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.”
In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”
The memo, addressed to the Committee on House Administration (CHA) and dated Feb. 3, 2017, was recently reviewed and transcribed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The letter bolsters TheDCNF’s previous reporting about the missing server and evidence of fraud on Capitol Hill.
It details how the caucus server, run by then-caucus Chairman Rep. Xavier Becerra, was secretly copied by authorities after the House Inspector General (IG) identified suspicious activity on it, but the Awans’ physical access was not blocked.
But after, the report reads, the server appears to have been secretly replaced with one that looked similar.
The memo called for firing the Pakistani-born aides, revoking all their computer accounts, and changing the locks on any door they had access to.
Rep. Louie Gohmert — a Texas Republican on the House Committee on the Judiciary who has done oversight work on the case — said the missing server contained copies of Congress members’ emails.
“They put 40 members of Congress’s data on one server … That server, with that serial number, has disappeared,” he said.
Multiple sources connected to the investigation told TheDCNF that shortly after an IG report came out identifying the House Democratic Caucus server as key evidence in a criminal probe, the evidence was stolen.
“They [the Awans] deliberately turned over a fake server” to falsify evidence, one official close to the CHA alleged. “It was a breach. The data was completely out of [members’] possession.”
The six-page letter says:
• In September of 2016 … the CHA and [IG] briefed the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus about suspicious activity related to their server that the [IG] identified. As a result, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus directed the CAO to copy the data from their server and two computers.
• The CHA directed the IG to refer the matter to the US Capitol Police. The USCP initiated an investigation that continues to this day.
• In late 2016, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus announced his intention to resign from Congress to assume a new position. The CAO and [sergeant-at-arms] worked with the Chairman to account for his inventory, including the one server.
• While reviewing the inventory, the CAO discovered that the serial number of the server did not match that of the one imaged in September. [Investigators] also discovered that the server in question [the replacement server] was still operating under the employee’s control, contrary to the explicit instructions of the former chairman to turn over all equipment and fully cooperate with the inquiry and investigation. [A House source said the “employee” was Abid Awan.]
• The USCP interviewed relevant staff regarding the missing server.
• On January 24, 2017, the CAO acquired the [replacement] server from the control of the employees and transferred that server to the USCP.President Donald Trump referenced the Democratic Caucus’ missing server in a tweet. But because the letter to the CHA was kept secret, many news outlets have not grasped that the House’s top cop documented a “missing server” connected to the Democratic Caucus.
The timeline laid out in the letter also shows that Becerra — now California’s Democratic attorney general — failed to ensure that the Awans didn’t have access to House computer systems during the 2016 election, which was wrought with cybersecurity scandals.
An IG presentation from September 2016 shows that Becerra knew of problems months before the server disappeared.
“The Caucus Chief of Staff requested one of the shared employees to not provide IT services or access their computers,” it read. “This shared employee continued.” It’s unclear why that request was not granted or why it was a request rather than an order.
A House official close to the probe said the employee was Abid, who was not on Becerra or the Caucus’s payroll. The official said Becerra Chief of Staff Sean McCluskie apparently knew Abid was accessing Caucus servers. According to payroll records, Abid’s sister-in-law, Hina Alvi, was the Caucus’ systems administrator.
The Awans’ continued physical access to Becerra’s equipment after red flags emerged enabled the server to disappear after it became evidence, House officials close to the investigation told TheDCNF.
Becerra has refused to comment, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.
The February 2017 memo itemizes “numerous and egregious violations of House IT security” by members of the Awan family, including using Congress members’ usernames and “the unauthorized storage of sensitive House information outside the House.”
“These employees accessed user accounts and computers for offices that did not employ them, without the knowledge and permission of the impacted Member’s office,” it said, adding, “4 of the employees accessed the Democratic Caucus computers 5,735 times.” More than 100 office computers were open to access from people not on the office’s staff, it said.
Chris Gowen — a former aide to Hillary Clinton who is now serving as Imran’s attorney — told TheDCNF, “There is no missing server and never was.”
He didn’t provide any support for his claim, which is contrary to evidence Kiko and Irving presented to Congress.
The memo said the CHA possesses voluminous evidence, including, “Interview notes with House Members’ Chiefs of Staff,” and “Logon activity and computer access logs.” Prosecutors have not brought charges.
The Awans were banned from Congress’s computer network the day the letter was sent, and Kiko held a briefing to convey the message to chiefs of staff for members who employed them.
But Democrats claim they were never told about any of the cybersecurity issues itemized in the urgent memo. Rep. Jackie Speier — a California Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who employed Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi — said she never heard of any missing server.
Joaquin Castro of Texas — another Democratic intelligence committee member who employed one of the Awans — told TheDCNF that Kiko never told him of any cybersecurity issues whatsoever and that the Awan probe was instead described as a theft issue.
Indeed, the CHA issued only one public statement on the case and titled it the “House Theft Investigation” — wording that avoids cybersecurity words while political news coverage raged about other cybersecurity issues in the 2016 election.
Yet even the alleged theft has not resulted in criminal charges — even though the letter also says House authorities have “purchase orders and vouchers” that allegedly show procurement fraud, as well as testimony from a Democratic chief of staff to Rep. Yvette Clarke, who warned of procurement fraud.
The FBI arrested Imran at the airport in July 2017 for alleged bank fraud that occurred six months prior, and Democrats have since claimed that the case is about nothing but bank fraud. Bank fraud does not explain why the Awans were kicked off the House network concurrent with the urgent memo, which did not cite bank fraud.
A Democratic IT aide who alleged that Imran solicited a bribe from him told TheDCNF he believes members of Congress are playing dumb and covering the matter up. Wendy Anderson, a former chief of staff to New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, told House investigators that she suspected that her predecessor, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, but Clarke refused to fire Abid until outside investigators got involved, TheDCNF reported.
Eighteen months after the evidence was recounted in the urgent memo, prosecution appears to have stalled for reasons not publicly explained. Imran is in court July 3 for a possible plea deal in the bank fraud case. Gohmert said the FBI has refused to accept evidence demonstrating alleged House misconduct, and some witnesses with first-hand knowledge say the bureau has not interviewed them.
For Those that Want to Eliminate ICE, Read This
This operation goes back to at least 2017, where collaboration with several agencies and international programs began to investigate FGM.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York Border Enforcement Security Taskforce (BEST), with support from HSI’s Human Rights Violators War Crimes Unit (HRVWCU), has initiated Operation Limelight USA, a pilot program designed to bring awareness to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and deter its practice through training, outreach and enforcement.
This initiative is the U.S.based version of the United Kingdom’s Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport conducted by the Metropolitan Police Service and Border Force.
The initiative aims to safeguard and prevent young girls from being subjected to FGM by informing passengers traveling to high-prevalence countries about the U.S. laws governing FGM and the potential criminal, immigration, and child protective consequences of transporting a child to another country for the purpose of FGM.
HSI HRVWCU intends to expand Operation Limelight USA to additional airports around the country, focusing on those airports serving the largest FGM- prevalent diaspora communities.
ICE leads effort to prevent female genital mutilation at Newark Airport
NEWARK, NJ – Starting on June 19, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark initiated Operation Limelight USA, a program designed to bring awareness to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and prevent young girls from being subjected to FGM by informing passengers traveling to FGM high-prevalence countries about the U.S. laws governing FGM and the potential criminal, immigration, and child protective consequences of transporting a child to another country for the purpose of FGM.
This initiative is the U.S. based version of the United Kingdom’s Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport conducted by the Metropolitan Police Service and Border Force. The pilot program was initiated at JFK International Airport last year and was incredibly successful. HSI has expanded Operation Limelight USA to additional airports around the country, focusing on those airports serving the largest FGM- prevalent diaspora communities. The operation at Newark International Airport met with similar success.
“Our aim here is three-fold regarding this brutal practice,” said Brett Dreyer, assistant special in charge, HSI Newark, and who led the efforts for Operation Limelight at JFK Airport last year and at Newark Airport this year. “Enforcement is a key piece here, but so is outreach and prevention. This is why we have partnered with other government agencies, NGOs and, most importantly, survivors and advocates from the community to share knowledge and resources so we may collectively end this practice.”“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is extremely proud to have assisted in this awareness program,” said Robert E. Perez, director New York Field office. “It is through collaborative efforts, such as this Female Genital Mutilation Prevention Program, that law enforcement agencies can contribute to the prevention of these serious human rights violations.”
FGM is a serious human rights violation, and a gender-specific form of child abuse. This harmful traditional practice negatively affects millions of women and girls around the world, and is concentrated in thirty-one countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. FGM provides no health benefits and in fact can cause lifelong consequences including chronic infection, severe complications during childbirth, mental health and even death.
HSI is in a unique position to engage with the traveling public at U.S. borders and ports of entry to focus on the prevention of “vacation cutting”, or sending children out of the United States for the purpose of FGM. As part of Operation Limelight USA, special agents, who have completed FGM-related training, speak to passengers flying to or from high-risk countries, offering informational brochures and identifying potential victims and violators of FGM. These discussions both educate passengers on the consequences of involvement in FGM and provide passengers with a means by which to refer cases or receive victim assistance.
Additionally, HSI Newark has partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, NJ state agencies representing children, local health practitioners, community organizations, and survivors in the fight against FGM. These partnerships reflect the necessity for a whole government approach to prevention of FGM.
Federal law, under Title 18 of United States Code (U.S.C.) §116, prohibits individuals from conducting, assisting, attempting or conspiring to conduct FGM in the United States or facilitating the international travel to perform FGM abroad on female children, under age 18. Additionally, 26 states, including New Jersey, have specifically outlawed FGM, and for the remaining 24 states, FGM would fall under existing child abuse statutes.
In April 2017, an HSI and FBI joint investigation led to the arrest of a Detroit emergency room physician who was charged with performing FGM on girls who were approximately six to eight years of age. This case, which is being prosecuted out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, is the first case of an individual facing prosecution in the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. §116, which criminalizes FGM.
Members of the public who have information about individuals suspected of engaging in human rights abuses, to include FGM, are urged to call the HSI tip line at – 1-866-DHS-2423 (1-866-347-2423). Callers may remain anonymous. To learn more about the assistance available to victims in these cases, the public should contact the confidential victim-witness toll-free number at 1-866-872-4973. You can learn more about HSI’s mission to enforce federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety at www.ICE.gov.