ICE Agent Fired for Lack of Candor Loses Federal Appeal

You work for a federal agency, you disclose a complicated past during your background check, and years later you lose your job anyway — not for what you did, but for how you answered the questions. That is what happened to George Jadue, a former ICE criminal investigator whose case the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided on August 31, 2026.

What the court decided

The Federal Circuit upheld the Merit Systems Protection Board's ruling that affirmed Jadue's removal from ICE. DHS fired Jadue in April 2018 on a charge of "lack of candor" — meaning the agency found he gave incomplete or misleading answers on his 2015 background investigation forms and during interviews with DHS security personnel. The court reviewed four of the original 11 specifications that an administrative judge had sustained and agreed that removal was a reasonable penalty.

Jadue's background was complicated. He had worked as a State Department Special Agent from 2002 to 2015. During that time, he received a Chilean passport in 2005 but did not fully disclose his possible dual citizenship on a 2011 security form. That led to a federal indictment in 2013 on charges of making false statements. A jury could not reach a verdict on the remaining count, and the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed not to retry him — in exchange for his resignation from State. When Jadue later applied to ICE in 2015, DHS ran its own background investigation and hired him anyway. But DHS later concluded his answers during that 2015 process were not fully candid, and it moved to fire him. Separately, DHS reinstated his security clearance in February 2018, finding he had not "willfully intended to deceive" — but that finding did not stop the removal proceedings, which ran on a separate track.

Jadue also argued that DHS missed legal deadlines in handling his discrimination complaint — by more than 433 days for one required document. He asked the Board to sanction DHS with a default judgment. The court dismissed that part of his appeal for lack of jurisdiction, meaning it could not rule on whether sanctions were appropriate.

What this means for federal workers and immigrants

This case is a reminder that "lack of candor" is treated as a serious charge in federal employment — even when a criminal case ends without a conviction. Federal agencies can fire employees for how they answered background investigation questions, separate from any criminal outcome. For immigrants who work in federal law enforcement or hold security clearances, this distinction matters: a not-guilty verdict or a dismissed charge does not automatically protect you from an agency's own administrative findings.

What to do

• If you are a federal employee facing a proposed removal, respond in writing to every specification in the proposal — do not assume a cleared criminal case protects you from administrative charges.
• If you have a complicated citizenship history (dual nationality, foreign passport, prior indictment), consult an immigration attorney and a federal employment attorney before completing any SF-86 or EQIP background investigation form.
• If your agency misses EEOC deadlines on a discrimination complaint, you have the right to appeal directly to the Merit Systems Protection Board after 120 days — do not wait for the agency to finish its process.
• Keep records of every deadline in your case: the 180-day ROI deadline and the 45-day final decision deadline under 29 C.F.R. § 1614.108 are enforceable, and missing them can be grounds for appeal.

A full breakdown of this topic — in our guide “Your Rights During an ICE Encounter”.