A US court has jailed Amara Dukuly, a former officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, for soliciting and accepting bribes to alter information on applicants’ residency files.
Mr Dukuly, 44, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison after he was found guilty of accepting a bribe of $6,000 to alter the “terrorist” references in an immigration applicant’s file, a statement said on Thursday.
District judge John Milton Younge further ordered Mr Dukuly to pay a $6,000 fine and a separate $6,000 restitution fee for the bribe he received. He also ordered Mr Dukuly to be placed on three years’ supervised release after serving his sentence.
Arrested in June 2025 and indicted a month later, Mr Dukuly pleaded guilty to “aiding and abetting the bribery of a public official in exchange for an official act,” the statement said.
In April 2025, Mr Dukuly accepted the $6,000 bribe and promised to wipe all references to terrorists in the applicant’s files.
“As detailed in court filings and statements, from approximately 2015 to 2025, Dukuly used his status as a USCIS employee to solicit bribes from individuals in exchange for promises to help them obtain assistance with their immigration status,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.