A Miami Department of Homeland Security employee was arrested for allegedly trafficking in immigration documents and selling fraudulent Employment Authorization Documents, or EAD cards.  EAD cards are required for non-U.S. citizens to work in the United States.

Federal agents arrested Isidro Guerrero Fernandez in Georgia on November 12.  He was in Georgia to train to become a Homeland Security special agent, a program he had started on November 6.  

In the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida’s criminal complaint, Guerrero is accused of charging immigrants between $6,500 and $12,000 for an EAD card that can be obtained legally for about $120. 

Guerrero had worked at the Miami office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services since March 1998 and transferred to the Employment Authorization Documents department in April 2002. 

According to the complaint, Guerrero worked with a Chilean man, Miguel Raggio, who would allegedly meet the immigrants at a nearby restaurant and take them to the CIS building.  Guerrero would then take the immigrants to illegally obtain their EAD cards.

Several unidentified immigrants’ reports of illegal card sales instigated an investigation on Guerrero.  They told officials that Raggio would take an immigrant’s passport along with an initial payment and later meet them at a restaurant to collect the final payment.  Agents observed Guerrero meet with several people to give them cards, and they stopped Raggio on November 12 after he met with someone who gave him $16,000 in down payments, according to the complaint.

Raggio admitted to agents that he was working with Guerrero after they found four legal pads with names of foreigners, their registration numbers and several printouts of names with dollar figures next to them.  After monitoring a phone call between the two men and recording a discussion about Guerrero driving to Miami to collect the payments, agents arrested the 32-year-old man at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia.

The government has charged Guerrero with conspiring with others to knowingly transfer false federal identification documents, illegally obtaining the Employment Authorization Documents, and soliciting and accepting bribes while being a public official.

It is unknown if Raggio was arrested, although he has previously been convicted of entering the United States illegally and has twice been deported.

Guerrero made his initial appearance in a Brunswick, Georgia, federal court on November 13.