The Department of Homeland Security is facing backlash after publicly alleging that Pennsylvania Democratic House candidate Janelle Stelson’s campaign employed an undocumented immigrant, a claim the campaign denies, according to Axios.
DHS put out a press release Wednesday about the arrest of a Nigerian man it described as working for a congressional campaign in Pennsylvania. ICE took the man, Chimaobim Adedayo Igbojekwe, into custody on Oct. 1, shortly after he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. ICE Deputy Director Charles Wall was quoted in the release asking how Stelson could employ him.
Stelson pushed back at an event that day: “He’s not an employee. He’s not a volunteer.”
Her campaign manager, Alma Baker, said the team will probably sue over the “blatant lies and coordinated misinformation campaign,” and the campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to several outlets that reported DHS’s claim as fact. Some outlets have since removed their stories.
The campaign says Igbojekwe has never been on its payroll or a vendor’s. Federal Election Commission records show no payments to anyone with that name through Sept. 30, and an Axios search of the campaign’s volunteer database found nothing.
However, an affidavit Axios obtained says the East Pennsboro police officer who made the arrest swears Igbojekwe said he was in the area for work, to hand out Stelson flyers, and showed a stack of them. DHS cited a New Jersey news site, which in turn relied on a post from far-right activist Scott Presler. Neither cited the campaign directly. A hybrid PAC tied to the House Freedom Caucus has since run a digital ad calling him a “Nigerian illegal alien campaigning for Democrat Janelle Stelson.”
The release also prompted an ethics complaint. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the Office of Special Counsel to examine whether Wall violated the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal employees. CREW’s Donald Sherman called the statement “gratuitous partisanship,” and the office replied that it will open a file. Deborah Fleischaker, a former acting ICE chief of staff under Biden, said agency lawyers would almost certainly have advised against it, calling references to an election in official statements “a no-no.”
The race between Stelson and Republican Rep. Scott Perry is a toss-up and has drawn more than $26 million in ad spending.
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