By Ademola Adekusibe
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced the arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of a Nigerian national following a public indecency incident in Pennsylvania, saying the man was working as a canvasser for a congressional campaign at the time of his arrest.
DHS identified the man as Chimaobim Adedayo Igbojekwe. According to the department, Igbojekwe was arrested on September 27 in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, after police responded to a report involving a man who was partially undressed in a residential area near a public park.
DHS said Igbojekwe was initially charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. However, court records show that the indecent exposure charge and one disorderly conduct count were subsequently withdrawn. Igbojekwe pleaded guilty to the remaining disorderly conduct charge, a third-degree misdemeanor.
Local police records indicate that when officers arrived, Igbojekwe was inside a vehicle with his genitals exposed. Police said he told them he was in the area waiting to distribute campaign flyers for Democratic congressional candidate Janelle Stelson. Officers reportedly found campaign materials inside his vehicle.
The incident subsequently became a matter of immigration enforcement. DHS said ICE arrested Igbojekwe on October 1 following his criminal case. The department said he had initially entered the United States lawfully in June 2017, but his authorized stay expired in November 2019. DHS further said he was granted deferred action by the Biden administration in September 2021.
The case has also generated a dispute over Igbojekwe’s alleged connection to the congressional campaign. While DHS described him as a canvasser for Janelle Stelson, the Stelson campaign has strongly denied that he was ever employed by the campaign.
The campaign said Igbojekwe had never been employed by it and that it had never heard of him before reports of his arrest. The campaign also said that if he was in the country illegally and had committed a crime, he should be deported. Federal campaign records reportedly show no payments from the Stelson campaign to Igbojekwe for services.
Despite the campaign’s denial, ICE Deputy Director Charles Wall criticised the alleged connection in a statement issued by DHS, questioning why Stelson would employ an undocumented immigrant who had been accused of exposing himself in public. DHS used the case to highlight its ongoing immigration enforcement activities.
The circumstances have therefore produced two separate issues. The first concerns Igbojekwe’s criminal case, in which he ultimately pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after the indecent exposure charge was withdrawn. The second concerns his immigration status and the conflicting accounts over whether he was actually working for the Stelson campaign.
The incident has attracted attention in Pennsylvania because Stelson is the Democratic nominee in the state’s 10th Congressional District, where she is challenging Republican incumbent Scott Perry. The case has consequently become part of the wider political and immigration debate surrounding the 2026 U.S. midterm elections.
For now, the Stelson campaign continues to deny any employment relationship with Igbojekwe, while DHS maintains that he was working as a campaign canvasser when the incident occurred.