Indonesian couple arrested at U.S. military base

Indonesian couple arrested at U.S. military base

Reuters, Washington

An Indonesian married couple and a Senegalese man who worked as
foreign language instructors for elite U.S. special operations
troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been arrested for
immigration violations, authorities said on Wednesday.

Army officials said the three, all provided by the same
private contractor, taught Middle Eastern languages at the John
F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg.

Sgt. Joseph Healy, a spokesman for Army Special Operations
Command, said the three instructors had a purely academic role
and "were not exposed to any Army special operations tactics
techniques or procedures."

Frank Whitney, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North
Carolina, said there were no suspicions of espionage involving
Indonesians Nurkis Qadariah, 34, and Sayf Rimal, 37, and
Senegalese Ousmane Moreau, 38.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the
arrests were part of an effort to remove illegal immigrants
working at sensitive sites and critical infrastructure locations
such as airports, seaports, nuclear plants, chemical plants and
military bases.

ICE agents arrested Qadariah and her husband Rimal on Tuesday
and charged them with possessing and using false immigration
documents and making false statements, officials said.

They were contractors working for BIB Consultants Inc., a
Florida-based company that provides language instructors to U.S.
Special Forces and other military personnel at Fort Bragg.
Criminal complaints filed against them said they used counterfeit
Resident Alien cards and falsely claimed to be lawful U.S.
permanent residents to get work with BIB.

Authorities said there were pending deportation proceedings
against Qadariah and Rimal in New York.

ICE agents arrested Moreau as part of the same investigation
and charged him with being in the United States illegally, which
will lead to proceedings to remove him from the country, the
agency said.

"Unauthorized workers who use fraudulent documents to gain
work at sensitive U.S. military installations pose a serious
homeland security threat," Jeff Jordan, the agency's assistant
special agent-in-charge in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a
statement.

"Not only are their identities in question, but they are also
vulnerable to potential exploitation by terrorists and other
criminals given their illegal status in this country," Jordan
said. "Furthermore, these individuals have access to some of the
most sensitive work sites in the nation."

Daniel Guillan, director of government contracting for BIB
Consultants, said the company complied with all federal and
contractual provisions by verifying employment eligibility for
work in the United States and that a background check on the
three "came back clear."