One more arrest of an African for a crime in Maine wouldn’t be worth posting, but this story had a little bit of information that interested me.
Here is the Bangor Daily News story from Houlton, Maine:
HOULTON, Maine — A citizen of the south central African nation of Angola was arrested in Houlton on Thursday for a probation violation stemming from a sex crime.
Officials with the U.S. Border Patrol said Friday that agents assigned to the Houlton sector were conducting a transportation check on a commercial bus in Houlton when they came across a man who said he was a U.S. refugee. The man told agents that he was born in Angola but had been granted asylum in the United States.
The suspicious agents conducted immigration and criminal checks, which revealed an active warrant out of Saint Charles County, Missouri. The warrant was for a probation violation stemming from a guilty plea that the man entered on a charge of first-degree sexual intercourse with a person less than 14 years old. [Why was he even free—ed]
Now this is what I found interesting. Houlton is a border town with Canada, but the arrest was made at the local bus station (guess the guy was hoping to get to Canada) not at the border crossing.
Williams said that while most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents conduct enforcement actions at transportation hubs away from the immediate border as part of a strategy of disrupting human smuggling activities.
Makes me wonder too which NGOs and immigration lawyers are helping these asylum seekers get across our borders—either coming or going!