The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently revealed the arrest of a Liberian individual residing in the U.S. without legal status who was working as a corrections officer in Minnesota.
According to a DHS press release, 45-year-old Morris Brown was taken into custody on January 15. This action took place through a “joint effort” involving U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of Operation Twin Shield.
Brown initially came to the U.S. in 2014 on a nonimmigrant student visa, which was revoked the following year due to her failure to enroll in a full course of study. Interestingly, she enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in the same year but found herself unemployed by 2015.
“Operation Twin Shield is yielding results as the Department of Homeland Security diligently targets individuals attempting to exploit the immigration system,” stated USCIS Director Joseph Edlow.
Brown applied for a green card in 2020 under the Liberian Refugee and Immigrant Equity Program but was previously arrested and discharged under non-honorable conditions in 2022, as per the statements released.
Brown last entered the United States with a nonimmigrant student visa in 2014. However, that visa was terminated in 2015 when she could not fulfill the requirements for a complete course of study. Despite lacking legal status, she enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 2014, but by the next year, it had transitioned into a demilitarized zone. She faced arrest and was discharged under other than honorable terms in 2022.
In an attempt to secure a green card under the Liberian Refugee and Immigrant Equity Program, her application was denied in 2020 due to several misrepresentations, including failures to disclose her military past and false claims of U.S. citizenship. In 2024, she applied for naturalization as a U.S. citizen based on her military service, facing a separate fraud charge.
As part of the operation, officials investigated Mr. Brown’s citizenship application and found evidence of marriage fraud and previous misrepresentations where he falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen, according to the press release.
Moreover, it was confirmed that Brown held a position as a corrections officer in Minnesota, despite her undocumented status in the country.
John Binder from Breitbart News reported that Edlow informed Congress earlier this month about the ongoing efforts of USCIS’s fraud investigators. He highlighted a significant uptick in cases where immigrants obtained visas and green cards through fraudulent means.
“In the past year, we referred around 33,000 fraud cases to law enforcement, marking a 138 percent increase compared to the previous year,” Edlow mentioned. “We performed thousands of home and workplace visits, alongside social media evaluations, to assess whether foreign nationals expressed anti-American sentiments.”
