Now and then you get to see all the stupidity, incompetence, paper-thin defenses, and legalistic baloney of our immigration system concentrated in a single case. Here's a good candidate, passed on to me by a friend, J.P.:Maryland corrections officer accused of leading double life, Washington Examiner, October 11, 2012. Italics everywhere are mine.

Marcus Akwecheh Onekon is a native of central Africa. (Whether of the actual Central African Republic or just of some nation in the central part of Africa, is not clear.)

Some time prior to 1995 he came to live in the U.S.A. We don't know how he got here.

In 1995 he was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport with a fake passport.

Two years later he was deported.

In 2005 his sister, a naturalized U.S. citizen, filed a petition to have her fiancé enter the U.S. to marry her.

The petition was swiftly granted, and the "fiancé"—it was actually her brother—returned to the U.S. under an assumed name.

Brother and sister were married in Maryland, May 2005.

Onekon filed for a green card as spouse of a U.S. citizen. This too was swiftly granted: January 2006.

He got a job as a prison officer. Maryland requires potential employees who are foreign nationals to submit immigration papers. It does not, however, encourage employers to scrutinize the papers carefully. To the contrary: "If they appear legitimate as required by law, we accept them," a Corrections spokesman said. "To do otherwise could be an unfair immigration-related employment practice."

Last year brother and sister divorced. (This doesn't hurt your green card status.)

In December last year Onekon applied for naturalization.

He had his CIS interview in April. Then or shortly afterwards, ICE smelled a rat.

Onekon was arrested September 26 for fraud, unlawful procurement of citizenship and "related charges."