News Releases and Statements

The HRVWCC including the DOJ's HRSP, ICE, and the FBI’s IHRU join U.S. and international law enforcement partners, NGO and others this Sunday in recognizing the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on Feb. 6.

Francisco Cuxum Alvarado, 66, was convicted of crimes against humanity by a High-Risk Court in Guatemala City, Guatemala and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

Representatives from ICE's HRVWCC traveled to El Salvador this week to remember the victims of the largest single massacre of civilians in modern Latin American history and commemorate the Dec. 10 United Nations Human Rights Day.

Since 2003, ICE has arrested more than 468 individuals for human rights-related violations of the law under various criminal and/or immigration statutes.

Peter Kalimu, aka Pierre Kalimu, aka Fidele Twizere, was denaturalized and ordered removed from the U.S. following charges alleging his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He departed the U.S., Oct. 21.

Oswald Rukemuye, 58, was removed via ICE Air Operations and turned over to law enforcement authorities in Rwanda to face justice for his crimes.

According to the indictment – which was unsealed following the arrest – Mezemr Abebe Belayneh, 65, of Snellville, served as a civilian interrogator at a makeshift prison in Dilla, Ethiopia, during a period in the late 1970s known as the Red Terror.

Jose Mardoqueo Ortiz Morales, 59, a former member of an elite Guatemalan army unit known as the Kaibiles, is accused of taking part in the massacre in which Guatemalan special forces executed 200 unarmed villagers, including women and children.

Beatrice Munyenyezi was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for procuring her naturalization based on false statements to immigration officers about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution while serving in 1945 as an armed guard of concentration camp prisoners in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system (Neuengamme). He was ordered removed from the United States in February 2020.

Partners of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC) including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division join foreign government partners, non-governmental organizations and local communities to call for the eradication of the practice.

Zahra Badri, 39, of Houston, who is originally from the United Kingdom, is charged in an indictment with knowingly transporting a minor from the United States in foreign commerce for the purpose of FGM from about July 10, 2016 through Oct. 14, 2016.

The ICE National Fugitive Operations Program, in coordination with the ICE Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, and the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, worked with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle, San Francisco and Salt Lake City field offices to arrest these fugitives.

The removal case and appeal were handled jointly by attorneys in ICE New Orleans Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (Memphis), and attorneys from DOJ’s HRSP, with the assistance of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

On Sept. 11, the National Criminal Court of Spain convicted Inocente Orlando Montano, 78, a retired Salvadoran military officer, and sentenced him to 133 years and three months for his role in the 1989 murder of five Jesuit priests during the 12-year Salvadoran civil war.

Alexander Mentol Zinnah, 56, arrived in Liberia escorted by ERO officers on board an ICE charter removal flight and was turned over to Liberian law enforcement authorities.

After a two-day trial, U.S. Immigration Judge Rebecca L. Holt issued her opinion finding Friedrich Karl Berger removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act because his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place” constituted assistance in Nazi-sponsored persecution.

Gilberto Jordan, 64, arrived in Guatemala escorted by ERO officers on board an ICE Air Operations charter removal flight. Upon arrival, Jordan was immediately turned over to Guatemalan law enforcement officials.

February 6 marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, all members of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC), join U.S. and foreign government partners, non-governmental organizations, and local communities to call for the eradication of the practice.

Francisco Cuxum Alvarado, aka Francisco Cuxun-Alvarado, 64, who had been held in federal custody since his indictment in May 2019, pleaded guilty to one count of illegal reentry into the U.S. in Sep. 2019, and was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani to six months in prison.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC) commemorates Human Rights Day December 10, the same day the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrates the proposition that freedom, justice and peace in the world are fundamental rights and that all individuals are entitled to equality.

Samayoa Cabrera, a former civil patrol leader, has been charged in Guatemala for his alleged role in more than 150 human rights abuses, including torture, rape and extrajudicial killing, in El Quichè.

Slobo Maric, 59, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on March 27, 2017, and his U.S. citizenship was revoked for unlawfully obtaining that status by failing to disclose – during his naturalization process – his membership in the Bosnian Army and crimes he committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian Conflict in the 1990s. He was released from prison and taken into custody by ERO on Aug. 24, 2018.

Operation Limelight began in 2014 as a joint initiative between the U.K. Border Force and police services across the U.K. Its goal is to tackle FGM by engaging with families traveling to countries with a high prevalence of FGM, to raise awareness of FGM, and to prevent and eventually to end the practice.