New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez talks to NewsNation's Tamron Hall about his knowledge of the situation surrounding the arrest of an unpaid intern working for him.
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By NBC News staff and wire service reports
Sen. Robert Menendez confirmed to msnbc TV?s Tamron Hall on NewsNation on Wednesday an AP report that an unpaid intern working in his office had been arrested by immigration authorities for being in the country illegally. The Associated Press reported that the 18-year-old from Peru was also a registered sex offender.
The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP. Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, told Hall he knew nothing about that allegation and did not learn of the arrest until just before appearing on msnbc Tuesday. He said his staff learned of the arrest Monday.
Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in front of his home in New Jersey on Dec. 6, two federal officials told the AP. Sanchez, who entered the country on a now-expired visitor visa from Peru, is facing deportation and remains in custody, the officials told the AP. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of Sanchez's immigration case.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to an AP request for further details.
Menendez, who advocates aggressively for pro-immigration policies, was re-elected in November with 58 percent of the vote. Sanchez told ICE agents that he worked on immigration issues for the senator, according to AP. A spokesman for Menendez told the AP she was looking into the matter.
Online jail records did not indicate whether Sanchez has an attorney. Immigration officials there were relaying a request from the AP to speak with Sanchez in jail.
The prosecutor's office in Hudson County, N.J., said Sanchez was found to have violated the law in 2010 and subsequently required to register as a sex offender, the AP reported. The exact charge was unclear because Sanchez was prosecuted as a juvenile and those court records are not publicly accessible. The prosecutor's office confirmed to AP that Sanchez registered as a sex offender, although his name does not appear on the public registry.
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Authorities in Hudson County notified ICE agents in early October that they suspected Sanchez was an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender and who may be eligible to be deported, according to the AP. ICE agents in New Jersey notified superiors at the Homeland Security Department because they considered it a potentially high profile arrest, and DHS instructed them not to arrest Sanchez until after the November election, one U.S. official told the AP. ICE officials complained that the delay was inappropriate, but DHS directed them several times not to act, the official told the AP.
It was not immediately clear why federal immigration authorities would not have been notified sooner about Sanchez's status.
During discussions about when and where to arrest Sanchez, the U.S. reviewed Sanchez's application for permission to stay in the country as part of President Barack Obama's policy to allow up to 1.7 million young illegal immigrants avoid deportation and get permission to work for up to two years. As a sex offender, he would not have been eligible. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, notified Sanchez of that shortly before his arrest, one official said.
During the final weeks of President George W. Bush's administration, ICE was criticized for delaying the arrest of President Barack Obama's aunt, who had ignored an immigration judge's order to leave the country several years earlier after her asylum claim was denied. She subsequently won the right to stay in the United States after an earlier deportation order, and there was no evidence of involvement by the White House.
In that case, the Homeland Security Department had imposed an unusual directive days before the 2008 election requiring high-level approval before federal agents nationwide could arrest fugitive immigrants including Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Obama's late father, according to the AP. The directive from ICE expressed concerns about "negative media or congressional interest," according to a copy of that directive obtained by AP. The department lifted the immigration order weeks later.
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