Undocumented Immigrant Sex Offender Was Interning for Bob Menendez

A month before this year’s election, the aspiring muckrakers at the conservative Daily Caller unveiled their “October Surprise”– allegations that New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez had not only solicited prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, but underpaid them. The story withered and Menendez cruised to re-election. He would have been in bigger trouble if they had gotten to today’s news instead: an undocumented Jersey City immigrant interning in the senator’s Newark office was arrested last week for overstaying a visitor’s visa from Peru. And for reasons still unclear, he attained sex offender status at 18. (Because of that status, he was ineligible to stay longer, as part of the president’s recent policy to relax deportations on young illegal immigrants.) According to the Inky, “Menendez said his staff did not know Sanchez was in the United States illegally and could not have known he was a sex offender because juvenile records are not public.” [Inquirer]