U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been entrusted with extraordinary authority over some of the most vulnerable people in the country. That authority includes the power to detain, deport, separate families, and use force. What an Associated Press review of public records now reveals is not a handful of isolated missteps, but a pattern of criminal behavior, abuse of power, and systemic failure that raises serious questions about ICE’s internal oversight, hiring standards, and accountability mechanisms.
The arrests span years, jurisdictions, and job titles. They include supervisors, auditors, deportation officers, contractors, and field agents. The charges are not trivial. They involve domestic violence, sexual abuse, attempted exploitation of minors, bribery, corruption, drunk driving with children in the vehicle, and violent assaults—often carried out by individuals actively entrusted with firearms, badges, and federal authority.
Crimes by Those Sworn to Enforce the Law
Public records reviewed by the Associated Press show roughly 17 ICE employees and contractors convicted of crimes, with at least six more awaiting trial. In 2025 alone, nine ICE workers were charged with criminal offenses.
Among the most disturbing cases is Samuel Saxon, an assistant ICE field office supervisor in Cincinnati, jailed since December 2025. A judge found probable cause that Saxon repeatedly abused his girlfriend over several years, fracturing her hip and nose and causing internal bleeding. ICE later classified him as absent without leave—an administrative label that does nothing to address how a supervisor accused of prolonged violent abuse rose and remained in a leadership role.
In Minnesota, ICE employment eligibility auditor Alexander Back was arrested in November 2025 after allegedly attempting to meet who he believed was a 17-year-old for sex. During his arrest, Back reportedly told police, “I’m ICE, boys,” invoking his federal status as if it were a shield. He remains on administrative leave.
Other cases show a reckless disregard for public safety. In Chicago, ICE officer Guillermo Diaz-Torres was found passed out in a crashed vehicle after his shift, with his government-issued firearm in the car. He pleaded not guilty to DUI. In August 2025, ICE officer Scott Deiseroth was arrested for driving drunk with his two children in the vehicle and attempted to evade accountability by citing his law enforcement and military service. He ultimately received probation.
These are not youthful indiscretions. These are decisions made by armed federal officers trained to enforce the law.
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Detainees
Even more alarming are the cases involving detainees—people entirely under government control.
An ICE supervisor, Koby Williams, was arrested in 2022 while allegedly attempting to meet a 13-year-old girl for paid sex. He arrived in a government vehicle containing cash, alcohol, pills, Viagra, his ICE badge, and a loaded firearm. When confronted, Williams claimed he was conducting a human trafficking rescue operation. That explanation collapsed under scrutiny. He is now serving jail time.
In Louisiana, an ICE contractor pleaded guilty in December 2025 to sexually abusing a detainee over a five-month period, allegedly instructing other detainees to act as lookouts. In Texas, a former senior official at an ICE contract facility admitted to slamming a handcuffed detainee into a wall by the neck. Prosecutors reduced the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor—a decision that itself raises questions about how aggressively abuse within detention facilities is pursued.
These cases are not merely personal crimes. They are violations of state power, carried out against individuals with little ability to resist or report abuse.
Corruption, Bribery, and the Sale of Federal Power
The AP review also uncovered multiple cases of ICE officials allegedly selling their authority for personal gain.
In Houston, a deportation officer was charged with accepting bribes from bail bondsmen to remove immigration detainers. In New York, a former ICE supervisor allegedly leaked confidential immigration status information and conducted an arrest in exchange for gifts. In Utah, two ICE investigators were sentenced to prison for stealing synthetic drugs from government custody and selling them through informants.
These are not lapses in judgment. They are acts of corruption that undermine the integrity of the immigration system itself.
Expansion Without Accountability
Many of these incidents occurred before Congress approved $75 billion in funding in 2025 to dramatically expand ICE’s staffing and detention capacity. That vote moved forward despite longstanding warnings from civil rights groups, watchdog organizations, and inspectors general that ICE lacks sufficient internal controls to prevent abuse.
The result is an agency empowered to grow faster than its ability to police itself.
Administrative leave, internal investigations, and delayed suspensions are repeatedly cited as responses—but these measures do little for victims, and even less to restore public trust. When agents invoke their badges during arrests, abuse detainees in custody, or claim law enforcement privilege to escape accountability, the problem is no longer individual misconduct. It is institutional failure.
The Oversight Question Congress Cannot Avoid
ICE’s mission gives it sweeping power over liberty, family unity, and physical safety. With that power comes a duty to enforce the highest standards of conduct. The AP’s findings show that duty is being violated again and again.
This is not an argument against immigration enforcement. It is an argument against unchecked enforcement.
Until Congress and the Department of Homeland Security confront these patterns with real consequences—independent investigations, criminal accountability, transparent reporting, and structural reform—the arrests will continue, the victims will multiply, and public confidence in federal law enforcement will keep eroding.
Power without accountability is not law enforcement.
It is liability.
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