Steve Jacob - Enforcement Officer, CBSA

Steve Jacob was an Enforcement Officer with CBSA in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada office in 2008. He provided ICE a sworn declaration regarding my identity and citizenship Declaration of Steve Jacob, 2008-05-14.

A bit of background: ICE was alleging I was a person named Ricky Riess who was a Canadian citizen and national, born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. They had been illegally detaining me for the past eight months and they were trying to deport me to Canada.

After my Deportation Officer Keith Acosta obtained Ricky Riess's fingerprints from the Toronto Police, establishing I was not Ricky Riess, Acosta contacted CBSA for assistance in verifying I WAS him and that the Ricky Riess passport, which ICE was using as the basis of their allegation I was him, was authentic and legitimately issued. The reason all of that is interesting is because, as I mentioned, just before contacting CBSA for that assistance, ICE had already verified my fingerprints DIDN'T match Ricky Riess! So they already KNEW when they contacted CBSA to verify I was Ricky Riess that I wasn't Ricky Riess!

Anyway, Steve Jacob was assigned to assist ICE in the matter. He ultimately provided ICE a sworn declaration stating:

• He was acting on information the passport was either a forgery or fraudulently obtained (emphasis added);
• He was able to verify with Ontario (Canada) Vital Statistics that a Ricky Steve Riess was born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada on 1973-11-24;
• He was able to verify with Passport Canada that they issued a Canadian passport to Richard Riess with date of birth: 1973-11-24, and place of birth: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Jacob went on to say in his declaration, that he was therefore satisfied:

• the passport is genuine;
• Riess was born in Canada and would have the right to return to Canada.

That's all fine and swell, except there is one extremely critical point which he neglected to investigate: Whether or not I am the person the passport purports to relate to.

Jacob's failure to investigate and determine that must have been deliberate becuase he explicitly acknowledged in his declaration, the possibility the passport may have been fraudulently obtained. "Fraudulently obtained" means the passport was applied for under false pretenses - by someone other than the person named on the passport. That is exactly what I had told ICE I had done. So why would Jacob neglect or refuse to investigate that one critical question?

Jacob verified a person was born with the name Ricky Riess in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada on 1973-11-24. Great, but there's never been any debate about that.

Jacob verified that Passport Canada (now part of IRCC), issued a passport in the name Richard Riess, with my photo. Excellent, but again, that's never been disputed.

What HAS been disputed, and what Jacob refused to investigate is whether I am the person who was born Ricky Riess in Sudbury, on 1973-11-24, or whether I applied for and obtained the passport fraudulently. I find it so incredibly hard to believe that an investigator would be so inept, so completely and utterly incompetent, that he would overlook such a critical question. Therefore, I have to assume that he did so on purpose, or that he was instructed not to investigate that aspect of it.

On the other hand, the more I deal with Canadian officials, the more I am inclined to believe they really are that inept and incompetent.

I believe the purpose of Jacob's so-called investigation and his declaration were not to determine the truth of those matters, but to provide ICE evidence in their allegations against me. Either that or he's just dumb as a rock.

That "investigation" and sworn declaration were the extent of Jacob's involvement in my cases. His declaration was used by ICE to justify a request for a continuance in my removal proceedings, but they refused to make him available as a witness for cross-examination.