A former U.S. Border Patrol agent was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to charges that he had made immigrant women expose their breasts when he was processing their information using a computer webcam.
The incidents took place after the immigrants had been encountered by Border Patrol agents in August 2023 while crossing the southern border.
Shane Millan, 54, who pleaded guilty in March to two misdemeanor counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, had been working at a Border Patrol station at Wellesley Island in Jefferson County and was using the computer to get information from the immigrants during interviews over a webcam. He had been a border patrol agent for 17 years at the time.
According to federal court records, Millan was tasked with gathering the migrants’ biographical and other information and saving the data electronically so that they could remain in the United States pending further immigration proceedings. Although the immigrants had crossed the southern border, Millan was doing the work through a computer from upstate New York at a time when record numbers of migrants were entering the U.S. and the federal agency was overwhelmed.
According to prosecutors, Millan “repeatedly abused his authority by requiring female immigrants to expose their breasts during these video-conference sessions, ostensibly so that he could confirm whether they had any chest tattoos.”
Millan did not speak Spanish but used a translation app to learn phrases such as, “I will also need you to lift your bra, please,” and “I will need to verify once more, can you stand in front of the monitor and lift your shirt and bra again, please,” according to court records.
One of the women, who was carrying an infant, resisted when Millan told her to lift her shirt a second time. Court records indicate he told her that he would not sign her paperwork unless she showed him her bare chest again. She reluctantly placed her child on the floor and lifted her shirt.
“These sickening demands violated agency policies regarding voyeurism and strip searches, but the victims did not know that,” federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “(Millan’s) repeated instructions appeared legitimate, which is the lynchpin of a color of law offense, and multiple immigrants reluctantly complied with them.”
Acting U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III said: “Everybody deserves respect, and we will not tolerate the sexual exploitation of immigrants by members of law enforcement. Nobody is above the law.”
Prosecutors said Millan admitted requiring at least a dozen women to show him their breasts during the webcam processing. The misconduct was exposed after “multiple victims had the courage to come forward and report how they were exploited,” prosecutors said.When he was initially interviewed about the allegations in August 2023, Millan told investigators that he had asked only one woman to lift her shirt but never asked any women to remove their bras. In June 2024, after an investigation that lasted nearly a year, he confessed to what he had done, according to court records.
Millan’s attorneys, while noting his behavior was “disturbing” and “aberrant,” had asked the judge to consider a sentence of “supervision, rather than incarceration,” along with mental health counseling. They said that he had no prior criminal history and is having trouble finding a new job due to publicity about his case.
They also wrote in the sentencing memorandum that prior to his arrest last year, Millan’s “lifestyle was not only law-abiding, considering his family commitments, religious practices, and career, his lifestyle was devoted to caring for and protecting others.”
Making Amerika great again, one perverted bully-boy at a time!
