A former priest from Colombia was recently denaturalized and will eventually be deported by the Trump administration over committing passport fraud stemming from a conviction abusing a child. Jorge Antonio Velez-Lopez lied to immigration officials about a former conviction for molesting a minor entrusted to him in the mid-2000s in the South American nation when he applied for permanent residency to the United States. Lying about his criminal past was grounds for revoking his status in the U.S.
Interestingly, records appear to indicate that although the crime occurred two decades ago in a foreign country, Velez-Lopez was arrested more recently in the United States and faced a trial for this episode. It is not clear if this is a second incident or merely protocol for immigrants. After being arrested, charged, and pleading guilty, the denaturalized Velez-Lopez will serve jail time before ultimately being deported.
“On Feb. 19, 2020, Velez was arrested in Maryland and charged with five counts of third-degree sex offense and one count of fourth-degree sex offense. He pleaded guilty on May 14, 2021, to sexual abuse of a minor for whom he had temporary responsibility and was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life,” Fox News reported.
Under the new Trump administration, ensuring immigrants that are in the this country legally and do not present safety risks has become a top priority. It marks a clear distinction from the previous administration. “Child molesters like Velez who lied about their crimes to become citizens thought they could hide behind those who earned what they stole,” acting Field Office Director Scott Ladwig said in the Fox article. “They thought ICE would have to search through thousands of records to find them. They were right. That’s exactly what we did.”
Responding to the news of the arrest was a lawyer named Joseph Bovino. He is a self-described “America-First immigration and business attorney based in Miami and serving clients worldwide. “The United States government has stripped a former priest of his U.S. citizenship and ordered him deported after an ICE investigation revealed that he lied about his past to get U.S. citizenship,” he said in a video posted to Instagram. “ICE says 69-year-old Jorge Antonio Velez-Lopez, a Colombian national, first entered the US in 2003 as a temporary religious worker.”
He continued: “[Velez-Lopez] applied for permanent residency in May 2007, and stated under penalty of perjury that he had never committed any crime of moral turpitude. He was granted permanent residency in November 2007. He applied for US citizenship in 2013, once again stating under penalty of perjury that he had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested, and had never lied to gain admission to the US. He was then interviewed by a USCIS officer, to whom he provided the same answers, and he was naturalized as a US citizen that same year.”
“In 2020, Mr. Vélez-Lopez was arrested in Howard County, MD, and was convicted of sexually abusing a child for whom he had responsibility of supervising. He confessed to molesting the victim from 2003 through 2009 while serving as the child’s priest, confirming he committed perjury during his US naturalization process. ICE says they went through thousands of records to find the lies and fraud, all part of a nationwide ICE initiative designed to identify and prosecute child molesters and other egregious felons who fraudulently obtained US citizenship.”
“And now, fortunately, this creep is no longer a U.S. citizen, and he won’t be able to molest or sexually abuse children or any other American,” Bovino concluded, with special emphasis on the description of the moral scumbag. Watch that recap from the America-First attorney below:
Featured image from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement