A Sierra Leonean national is in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody after his arrest this month on charges including rape and sexual assault, officials have confirmed.

Ibrahim George Kallon was taken into custody by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Philadelphia on February 11 and remains detained, according to a statement released by the agency on February 23 .

Kallon had been in correctional officer training at the Delaware County prison in Pennsylvania when he was charged in 2025 with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, and false imprisonment, ICE reported.

The agency stated that Delaware County authorities released Kallon without notifying ICE, prompting federal immigration officials to subsequently take him into custody.

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The charges against Kallon remain allegations unless and until proven in court.

Kallon’s arrest comes amid intensified U.S. enforcement actions against Sierra Leonean nationals with criminal histories and broader restrictions on travel from Sierra Leone.

In January 2026, Mariama Sia Kanu, a Sierra Leonean woman convicted of two counts of homicide, was taken into custody by ICE agents in Minnesota as part of an operation targeting noncitizens with serious criminal convictions . Kanu had been under a final deportation order since July 2022.

Earlier in 2025, Abdul Dukuray was removed from the United States after convictions for murder and weapons possession . Prince Solomon Knox, 62, was also deported following convictions for visa fraud and domestic assault; U.S. authorities stated Knox had falsely denied past affiliations with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) on his visa application.

In September 2025, ICE removed Charles Emile Mbayo, a suspected war criminal and former high-ranking member of Sierra Leone’s National Provisioning Ruling Council military junta, to Sierra Leone. Mbayo had entered the United States in 1998 on a student visa.

The arrests coincide with significant new travel restrictions imposed on Sierra Leonean nationals. Effective January 1, 2026, the U.S. government implemented a full suspension of entry for Sierra Leonean nationals under Presidential Proclamation 10998, citing “persistent and severe deficiencies” in Sierra Leone’s identity-management protocols and a lack of cooperation on deportations .

The suspension applies to both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, effectively barring most Sierra Leonean citizens from obtaining new visas to travel to the United States . The U.S. Embassy in Freetown has clarified that visas issued before January 1, 2026 remain valid, though final entry decisions rest with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Additionally, effective January 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of State paused all immigrant visa issuances to nationals of Sierra Leone and dozens of other countries deemed at “high risk of public benefits usage”.

President Donald Trump has highlighted data showing that 43.6% of Sierra Leonean immigrant households in the United States depend on public benefits, a statistic used to justify the administration’s immigration framework.