From Baltimore to Boston to Chicago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are arresting violent fugitives, including those wanted for war crimes.
In Boston, ICE officers arrested a twice-deported fugitive from El Salvador, Leonel Santos-Diaz, during targeted immigration enforcement operations in Chelsea.
He is wanted in El Salvador after being arrested for aggravated homicide, human trafficking, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and is a suspect in an aggravated robbery investigation. He illegally entered the U.S. to evade prosecution, authorities said.
“Sadly, this is yet another example of what the dishonest media will portray as a non-criminal arrest, despite Leonel Santos-Diaz being charged with aggravated homicide and human trafficking in his home country,” Acting ICE Boston Field Office Director David Wesling said. “The ironically named ‘Protect Act’ in Massachusetts is designed to shield individuals like Santos-Diaz from arrest and deportation. Do any Massachusetts residents really feel protected by his presence in their community?”
Extraditions are a large part of Trump administration border security operations. In addition to extraditing illegal foreign nationals wanted by their governments, the U.S. is also extraditing dozens at a time from other countries to prosecute them in the U.S.
In Chicago, ICE officers arrested and deported Liberian national Amos Sheik Massaquoi, who is accused of having “ordered and participated in extrajudicial killings, acts of torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, forced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers” during Liberia’s two civil wars. The wars, stretching from 1989 to 2003, led to the murder of more than 250,000 and extensive human rights violations and war crimes.
In December 1989, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia overthrew the government and Massaquoi reportedly served as a chief bodyguard to NPFL leader Maj. Gen. Daniel Chea. He also received specialized military training at a Chinese military academy in 2004, ICE said.
He illegally entered the U.S. in 2006 under the Bush administration, ICE said. It wasn’t until the first Trump administration that ICE Homeland Security Investigations-Maryland arrested him in 2019. A federal immigration judge then released him back into the country.
ICE-Baltimore officers again arrested him last April. ICE HSI-Maryland working with the Washington, D.C., based HSI Human Rights Violators and War Crimes (HRVW) Center maintains he is connected to alleged war crimes.
The HSI HRVWC center is dedicated to identifying, locating and prosecuting human rights abusers illegally in the U.S. They include those who are known or suspected to have participated in persecution, war crimes, genocide, torture, extrajudicial killings, female genital mutilation, or used or recruited child soldiers.
A federal judge ordered his removal last May. He was deported in August.
“If you are a confirmed human rights violator and you believe you can hide in the United States, you are mistaken,” ICE Chicago Field Office Director Frank Padula said. “ICE will pursue, arrest and remove any individuals who committed atrocities abroad and ensure our communities are not used as a sanctuary from accountability.”
“Amos Sheik Massaquoi’s is believed to have engaged in cruelty and terror, marked by killings, torture, forced labor, unlawful imprisonment and the recruitment of children into armed conflict,” ICE HSI-Maryland Special Agent in Charge Akil Baldwin said in a statement. “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure this country never becomes a refuge for those who brutalize innocent people.”
In another case earlier this year, the HRVWC center discovered that a Bosnian war criminal illegally entered the U.S. and falsified paperwork to illegally obtain U.S. citizenship.
Last November, Nada Radovan Tomanic, 53, pleaded guilty to one count of procuring citizenship contrary to law and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The fraud charge stems from Tomanic “concealing her involvement in torture and inhuman treatment amounting to a war crime while serving with the Zulfikar Special Unit of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s,” ICE said.
Despite participating “in severe physical and psychological abuse of Bosnian Serb prisoners,” she twice denied serving in the unit or committing war crimes when applying for naturalization, ICE said.
Under the Trump administration, visas, citizenship and other immigration status are being revoked and foreign nationals are being deported, The Center Square reported.
Since 2003, ICE has obtained deportation orders against and physically removed 1,178 known or suspected human rights violators and facilitated the departure of another 208.
Currently, ICE HSI has more than 1,903 active investigations and is pursuing more than 1,985 leads and removals cases involving suspected human rights violators from 95 countries, it says.
Since 2003, the HRVWC center has issued more than 80,000 individual lookouts and stopped over 415 human rights violators and war crimes suspects from entering the U.S.
Those with information about potential former human rights violators spotted in the U.S. are encouraged to contact the ICE Tip Line at 866-DHS-2-ICE or email [email protected].
