A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer based in Santa Ana, Calif., has been indicted on three counts of solicitation for accepting thousands of dollars and hundreds of egg rolls as bribes from immigrants seeking legal status, U.S. citizenship and green cards, The Daily Caller reported.
Sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, 48-year-old Mai Nhu Nguyen was arrested on June 6 after the FBI, working alongside the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, caught her accepting a $2,000 bribe in exchange for granting an immigrant with U.S. citizenship, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a press release Wednesday.
Nguyen was described to have been entrusted with "the power to approve or deny applications for immigration benefits that are submitted by immigrants," federal prosecutors said, adding that she "solicited and took bribes from Vietnamese immigrants" from 2011 through June 2013.
In one instance, the immigration officer allegedly solicited and took a $1,100 bribe from an alien seeking a green card while accepting 200 egg rolls from another citizenship applicant. Additionally, she also took $2,200 bribe from an immigrant in 2011, New York Post reported.
For the past eight years, Nguyen had worked at USCIS, reviewing immigrants' citizenship applicants and various other benefits. Now, she has been placed "on leave" from the job, according to the FBI.
Meanwhile, Nguyen has been released in a $20,000 bond and is set to be arraigned by July 1. Each count of bribery by a public official is punishable by up to 15 years in federal prison, NBC News reported.
A message left for an attorney for Nguyen was not immediately returned.
