US man faces 4 months in prison for bribing ICE agent to deport wife

Antonio Burgos offered the ICE agent $3,000 to deport his estranged wife and her child to El Salvador.

(AFP/Getty)

A man from Portland, Oregon, has been sentenced to four months in prison for his plot to try and bribe an ICE agent to deport his wife and step-child.

Antonio Burgos, 48, was dealing with a failing marriage and divorce proceedings when he first approached an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent near the Oregon-Washington border in May of 2018.

Burgos offered the agent $3,000 to deport his wife and her child from a previous relationship to their home country of El Salvador.

Rather than accept the bribe, the ICE agent reported Burgos’s request to the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The OPR then initiated a sting operation with the help of the Department of Homeland Security, according to ABC News.

The OPR recorded two conversations where Burgos offered to pay the agent $3,000, and then set up a meeting at a predetermined location in June. At this meeting, Burgos raised his offer to $4,000.

23 days after the meeting, Burgos was arrested.

Burgos was charged with and pleaded guilty to one count of bribery to a public official. After his four month prison stint, Burgos will serve three years of supervised release.