Feds Seek To Strip Citizenship From Aurora Sex Offender, 4 Others

AURORA, IL — A convicted sex offender and Aurora resident fraudulently obtained citizenship by hiding his abuse of children during the naturalization process, according to the Department of Justice. Eleazar Corral Valenzuela, 49, of the 300 block of South Kendall Street in Aurora, is a native of Mexico and registered sexual predator. According to federal prosecutors, he was naturalized in June 2000 but had sexually abused a minor child prior to applying for citizenship.

The abuse extended from June 1998 to about February 2000, according to a civil complaint filed in federal court Tuesday that sought to strip Corral of citizenship. In November 2000, he was found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Kane County Court, sentenced to 48 months of sex-offender probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Prosecutors said Corral had filed for citizenship with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in January 1999 – at the same time he was abusing a young girl. According to the state registry, he was 32 and his victim was 12 when the offense occurred.

As part of the application paperwork, applicants are asked if they've ever "knowingly committed any crime" for which they have not been arrested. When Corral answered "No," he lied, according to the complaint. At no point during the process did he never disclose his sexual abuse of a minor family member.

The complaint alleges Corral ended up getting his citizenship in June 2000. In August, he was indicted by a Kane County Grand Jury on seven counts of abusing a minor, one of which he pleaded guilty to.

Corral, whose immigration application said he has lived in Aurora since 1991, is one of five convicted immigrant sex offenders from whom the Department of Justice is seeking to revoke citizenship in court, including three cases filed in Texas and one in Florida. Each were allegedly ineligible for citizenship from the time they applied.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, naturalized U.S. citizens may have their citizenship revoked and their certificate of naturalization canceled, if a court finds that naturalization was either illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.

The five-count complaint against Corral accuses him of both illegally procuring naturalization by committing the crime and then hiding the crime by not admitting to it during the process of obtaining citizenship.

“Those who unlawfully procured citizenship by concealing crimes – especially sexual abuse of minors – should have their citizenship revoked,” Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Elaine Duke said in a release announcing the arrests.

The cases were referred to the Department of Justice by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with help from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“Committing fraud in any immigration matter undermines the integrity of our immigration system, and is a betrayal of the American people’s generosity,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “This Department will continue to fight to denaturalize immigration fraudsters and to protect the American people from sex offenders.”

_{Top photo: Eleazar Corral Valenzuela | Illinois State Police}