Federal immigration agents have taken a convicted sex offender off the streets after discovering he had been living illegally in the United States for decades while working as a university professor. Sumith Gunasekera, a Sri Lankan national, was arrested by ICE in Detroit on November 12. He had been employed as an associate professor of data science and analytics at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, where administrators quickly placed him on administrative leave following the arrest.
🚨 BREAKING: ICE agents arrested an illegal alien who was working as an associate professor at Ferris State University in Michigan, @DailyCaller reports.
Sumith Gunasekera, a Sri Lankan national, was also previously arrested for multiple sex crimes, ICE told The Daily Caller. pic.twitter.com/cdgohCFhCG
— Off The Press (@OffThePress1) November 25, 2025
Gunasekera’s criminal record stretches back to the late 1990s, starting with arrests in Canada for uttering death threats, invitation to sexual touching, and sexual interference involving a minor. In November 1998, a court in Brampton, Ontario, convicted him of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm and sexual interference, sentencing him to one month in jail and a year of probation. Years later, in 2003, Las Vegas police arrested him for open and gross lewdness, leading to a 2004 conviction for disorderly conduct and fines.
Despite these convictions, Gunasekera managed to enter the U.S. in February 1998, briefly left for Canada, and returned on a student visa later that year. Federal authorities only learned of his Canadian crimes in 2012 when he applied to change his immigration status, yet he continued to evade deportation through a series of applications, denials, and appeals that exploited gaps in the system.
For 27 years, this allowed him to build a career in academia, including stints at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Ferris State, where he taught vulnerable young adults.
“It’s sickening that a sex offender was working as a professor on an American college campus and was given access to vulnerable students to potentially victimize them,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Thanks to the brave ICE law enforcement officers, this sicko is behind bars and no longer able to prey on Americans. His days of exploiting the immigration system are OVER. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, criminals are not welcome in the U.S.”
The arrest comes amid a renewed push by the Trump administration to prioritize the removal of criminal aliens, a stark contrast to the previous years when porous borders and lenient policies let individuals like Gunasekera slip through and embed themselves in communities. Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers called the case a prime example of why stronger enforcement is needed, stating it “should never have been allowed to happen” and blaming “failed Democrat policies” for endangering citizens.
Gunasekera remains in ICE custody awaiting immigration proceedings, which could finally lead to his deportation. Cases like this raise serious questions about how many other threats are lurking in plain sight, hired into positions of trust, thanks to decades of ignored warnings about unchecked immigration.