ERO Boston arrests Irish citizen wanted on passport fraud, theft charges in Ireland

BOSTON — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston arrested an unlawfully present Irish citizen June 13 in Billerica. He is identified as a member of a transnational criminal organization and is wanted for passport fraud, theft and multiple motor vehicle offenses by authorities in the Republic of Ireland.

The 31-year-old Irish citizen was temporarily allowed into the United States in August 2021 under a nonimmigrant visa waiver, but he remained beyond the visa’s terms, violating his terms of admission. Law enforcement officials in Ireland and the United States identified him as a member of a transnational criminal organization called the Traveling Conmen Fraud Group.

Noncitizens placed into removal proceedings receive their legal due process from federal immigration judges in the immigration courts, which are administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) within the Department of Justice. EOIR is a separate entity from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case, determining if a noncitizen is removable or eligible for certain forms of relief from removal. Once a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge or other lawful means, ERO officers carry out the removal decisions made by the federal immigration judges.

In fiscal year 2022, ERO arrested 46,396 noncitizens with criminal histories. This group had 198,498 associated charges and convictions, including 21,531 assault offenses; 8,164 sex and sexual assault offenses; 5,554 weapons offenses; 1,501 homicide-related offenses; and 1,114 kidnapping offenses.

As one of ICE’s three operational directorates, ERO is the principal federal law enforcement authority in charge of domestic immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those who undermine the safety of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and its primary areas of focus are interior enforcement operations, management of the agency’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who have received final orders of removal. ERO’s workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings, and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.