Jon Luke Evans, a Jamaican living illegally in Maine after overstaying his visa, has been arrested by Homeland Security. The unusual aspect of this story is that Evans had, during his two-year sojourn in America, actually been hired as a bona fide police officer, in the town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
Evans was hired as a reserve officer within the police department, a job that did not come with the issuance of a weapon. And that explains how he eventually came to the notice of the DHS. Evans decided to push his luck by attempting to buy a gun himself, which alerted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and, ultimately, DHS and ICE. He was arrested for immigration fraud on July 25.
Patricia Hyde, the ICE Field Office Director in Boston, issued the following statement:
Jon Luke Evans not only broke U.S. immigration law, but he also illegally attempted to purchase a firearm. Shockingly, Evans was employed as a local law enforcement officer. The fact that a police department would hire an illegal alien and unlawfully issue him a firearm while on duty would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. We have a police department that was knowingly breaking the very law they are charged with enforcing in order to employ an illegal alien. ICE Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing criminal alien threats from our New England communities.
The chastened Old Orchard Beach police chief, claiming that Evans had passed a “full background check, physical and medical screening, and law enforcement training,” offered the following excuse:
Our department and our community relied on the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program to ensure we were meeting our obligations. We are distressed and deeply concerned about this apparent error on the part of the federal government. We take our legal responsibilities very seriously. We intend to investigate this matter thoroughly and determine what additional steps may be necessary moving forward.
Since the erring DHS the department had relied on was then under the Biden administration, maybe the chief has a point.
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