WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is ramping up an effort to deport criminal illegal aliens and will be announcing denaturalization actions against 10 of them on Monday — including a fraudster who bilked taxpayers out of nearly $1 million in Medicare funding, The Post has learned.
The Department of Justice filed actions in the past 30 days against naturalized US citizens from Mexico, Cuba, Pakistan, Peru and Poland who were convicted of health care fraud, wire fraud, immigration fraud, child sex abuse and drug trafficking.
The move is part of what administration officials have dubbed the “largest denaturalization effort ever” and includes one of the first attempts to remove a health care fraudster from the US.
“These ten criminal aliens — including child sex abusers, a $900,000 Medicare fraudster, and a cocaine trafficker — lied their way into U.S. citizenship,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement.
“When you commit fraud during the naturalization process, you forfeit the right to keep your U.S. citizenship,” added Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “These criminal aliens, comprised of drug traffickers, pedophiles, and fraudsters, lost that right and exploited our immigration system—harming real U.S. citizens. DHS is committed to ensuring we denaturalize and remove these fraudsters with every tool at our disposal.”
Yoskmaikel Rodriguez Perez was convicted in January 2020 of running a fake medical center in Miami that fraudulently billed Medicare more than $886,694 for “unnecessary prescriptions to HHAs [Home Health Agencies], pharmacies, and patient recruiters,” according to a July 18 filing.
The 45-year-old Cuban native had become a naturalized US citizen in 2018.
Two former Catholic priests — Urbano Vazquez Ortega and Martin Stanislaw Garbacz — also had actions submitted against them after being convicted of child sex crimes.
Ortega is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for second-degree child sex abuse after he assaulted minors while working as a priest at a Washington, DC, church before, during and after becoming a naturalized citizen in 2017.
The Mexican native “sexually abused minor females from his congregation,” Sacred Heart Shrine, by groping their breasts, buttocks and even putting “his tongue in the mouth” of one of them, a July 10 filing noted.
Garbacz, a Polish native, was convicted on 65 counts of stealing more than $250,000 from three Catholic parishes while serving between 2012 and 2019 as a priest in Rapid City, SD, as well as engaging in illicit sexual conduct by filming a 17-year-old male in a hotel shower during a parish trip to Krakow.
The 47-year-old was sentenced to 117 months in prison in 2022. Garbacz had become a naturalized US citizen in 2014 and now faces denaturalization, per a July 6 filing.
Another June 15 denaturalization filing against Mexican native Omar Cantu-Montalvo also cited his 2016 conviction for conspiring to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine. The 44-year-old served a 100-month sentence after having become a naturalized citizen in 2005.
The other denaturalization actions were filed in federal courts against Ceflo Luviano-Mojica, a Mexican native, for lying on his naturalization application about not having been arrested for grand theft and concealing a firearm; Murtaza Ali, a Pakistan native, for filing false applications for immigration benefits under a pseudonym; and Jimmy Aguero, a Peru native, for sexual abuse of his minor stepdaughter.
Mexican natives Francisco Montano and Martin Garcia Cardiel were also pushed into denaturalization proceedings for child sex crimes.
Antonio Alcantara-Ruiz, another Mexican native, had a denaturalization action brought against him for buying fake IDs to get a permanent residency card and then to apply for naturalization.
“Each of these individuals lacked the good moral character required by law and procured citizenship through willful misrepresentations and concealment of their crimes,” added Blanche.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice will continue to aggressively pursue denaturalization to restore integrity to America’s naturalization process.”
