Convicted Child Molester Revoked of Citizenship, Slated for Deportation After Serving Prison Time

The case was investigated by ICE’s Operation False Haven, which targets child molesters and other felons who obtain U.S. citizenship through fraud.

Isidro Arcenio Alvarado, a native of El Salvador and convicted child molester. Courtesy of U.S. Justice Department

A convicted child molester from El Salvador has been sentenced to active prison time for fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in a Feb. 24 statement.

Isidro Arcenio Alvarado, 58, “confessed to knowingly making materially false statements under oath and penalty of perjury on his naturalization application and during a naturalization interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He denied his criminal activity and lied to USCIS officials to gain immigration benefits. Alvarado naturalized on Oct. 12, 2022,” USCIS said.

A federal judge has revoked Alvarado’s citizenship and ordered his removal from the country after completing his six-month sentence.

Alvarado was arrested in April 2023 and charged with committing multiple sex offenses against a child.

In July 2025, Alvarado pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent liberties with a child at the Wake County Superior Court of North Carolina. He admitted to committing the crimes from Jan. 1, 2019, through April 10, 2021. The victim was 10 years old in 2019. A state judge had sentenced him to a suspended prison term in the child molestation case, and ordered that Alvarado be registered as a sex offender, the agency said.

Alvarado’s case was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of Operation False Haven, an initiative that aggressively targets child molesters and other felons who obtain U.S. citizenship through fraud.

Alvarado’s sentencing for citizenship fraud took place earlier this month. Immigration officials were unaware of his “deviant sex crimes” prior to granting him citizenship, according to a Feb. 11 statement from the Department of Justice.

“Sex predators who sexually abuse 10-year-old children deserve, at the very least, prison time and should never be granted the privilege and honor of United States’ citizenship,” U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said. “Thanks to the excellent investigation by ICE, this pervert will never harm another child in the United States. He better stay out.”

In December, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a webpage, dhs.gov/wow, detailing the “worst of the worst” illegal immigrants arrested under the Trump administration.

The site was recently updated with 5,000 criminals, taking the total number of listed individuals to more than 30,000, according to a Feb. 20 statement from DHS. It allows people to search through “criminal illegal aliens who have been arrested across all 50 states, with criminal histories that include homicide, assault, rape, drug trafficking, child molestation, cruelty toward a child, battery, and armed robbery, among other crimes.”

Asylum Screening

Critical of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement, Democrats are refusing to support a DHS funding bill, leaving the department partially shut down since Feb. 13. Democrats are demanding changes to immigration enforcement policy, particularly ICE operations, to support passing the bill.

Demands include requiring immigration officers to have judicial warrants before they enter private property, strengthening warrant status, mandating that immigration officers display agency affiliation, and prohibiting immigration enforcement in sensitive locations such as churches, schools, and medical facilities.

Democrats have also demanded that immigration agents remove their masks and wear body cameras.

On Feb. 18, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had rejected a revised, “very unserious” offer sent by Democrats to support DHS funding.

Meanwhile, the DHS announced on Feb. 20 that it was proposing rules to strengthen the screening of asylum seekers. The rule seeks to reduce the incentive for illegal immigrants to file for fraudulent asylum claims in order to obtain work authorizations.

“We are proposing an overhaul of the asylum system to enforce the rules and reduce the backlog we inherited from the prior administration,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The Trump administration is strengthening the vetting of asylum applicants and restoring integrity to the asylum and work authorization processes.”