Posted on 05/13/2010 8:30:01 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Two people have been taken into custody on possible immigration violations following a sweep today in Watertown and at other locations across the Northeast in connection with the investigation into the attempted May 1 Times Square bombing, federal officials tell the Herald.
FBI agents were also seen at two gas stations in Brookline - one on Harvard Street and another on Cypress Street.
The agents were seen carefully examining a silver Honda at the Harvard Street station, but it is unclear whether the activity is related to the Times Square probe.
FBI agents have also been seen at a home in Watertown on Waverley Street.
“I was sitting in the living room at 6 this morning watching television when I heard somebody yell, ‘FBI put your hands up,’ ” said Vincent Lacerra, who lives across the street from 39 Waverley Ave., near Watertown Square. “I looked out the window and there were 15 to 20 FBI agents with their guns drawn, pointing at the house right there.”
Lacerra said he saw the feds take out a “Middle Eastern man” who he personally had never met.
“There was no struggle,” he said, glancing at the dirty, rundown white house with gray shutters and the blinds drawn. “I kept looking because I thought there was going to be more people removed, but he was the only person I saw.”
Lacerra said the rental property, which is located across the street from Watertown middle school, is constantly turning over with new residents. Neighbors said they’ve seen police staking out the area for several days, but did not why.
Authorities this morning are taking large cardboard boxes into the property and carrying things out.
Governor’s Councilor Marilyn Devaney, who lives around the corner from the home raided this morning, said, “This is so scary. This whole laissez-faire immigration thing is putting everyone at risk. We’re just fortunate that we’re getting these people before they’re successful. Here we are just six miles from Boston.”
Boston FBI Special Agent in Charge Warren T. Bamford said searches are being conducted at locations through the Northeast.
“We can confirm that search warrants have been executed in several locations in the Northeast in connection with the investigation into the attempted Times Square bombing,” Bamford said. “A number of individuals encountered during the searches were taken into federal custody for alleged immigration violations.“
Bamford said the searches “are the product of evidence that has been gathered in the investigation subsequent to the attempted Times Square bombing and do not relate to any known immediate threat to the public or active plot against the United States.”
No further information was available.
Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, is accused of placing a bomb-laden SUV in Times Square on May 1. The homemade device malfunctioned, but panicked the city and set off an intense manhunt. Shahzad was captured two days later, when he was pulled off a Dubai-bound plane at Kennedy Airport.
Elias Audy owns both Brookline gas stations, one a Mobil station and car lot, that the feds are searching this morning in Brookline, according to state records. Residents and longtime customers are reacting with surprise to see the police activity.
That goes with this story:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/fbi-raids-in-suffolk-linked-to-nyc-bomb-plot-1.1909962
from Hot Air
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/13/breaking-feds-arrest-two-in-boston-in-times-square-attack-probe/
Breaking: Feds arrest two in Boston in Times Square attack probe
Federal authorities conducted raids in Boston, Long Island, and possibly more locations today as part of the investigation into the attempted terrorist attack on Times Square almost two weeks ago. Fox News reports that two men of Pakistani descent have been arrested in Boston, although no one knows yet what their connections to the case may be:
Federal authorities have arrested two Pakistani men living in the Boston area in connection with the attempted Times Square bombing, Fox News has learned.
FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Thursday morning executed search warrants in “several locations in the Northeast,” a statement from ICE said.
At least one of the federal raids was in Watertown, Mass., a Boston suburb. Two search warrants related to the case were also executed on Long Island in New York.
The two may not have be in custody long, however, as they may have not known what Faisal Shahzad had in mind:
“We’re trying to figure out where [the main suspect] got money from, and these are potential sources of that money.”
But, the source said, the Boston-area men may have “unwittingly assisted in some capacity.” In fact, the source said, the main suspect in the case, 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, may have duped the men into providing money, but authorities are not ruling out anything at this point.
The feds must be amazed that anyone connected to the plot is still in the US. Ironically, one of the men detained has already been identified as Pirdad Khan, who should have been long gone after a 2002 order to leave the country for illegally entering the country, as well as “concealment of facts.” The fact that he’s still here after seven and a half years will be an embarrassment to both the Bush and Obama administrations. The other unidentified man will be charged with overstaying his visa, putting renewed focus on our broken visa-enforcement system — which Congress demanded to be fixed five years ago.
The raids make clear that the Obama administration have abandoned the idea that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” terrorist and instead participated in a cell of some kind in a terrorist network. The arrest of Khan should have the national security agencies combing through their records to see who else hasn’t complied with an order to leave the US.
They sure broke up that Tea Party chapter.
Hmm, arrested on suspected immigration violations. Paging Arizona, paging Arizona.
Embarrassment? These two will be smugly happy that their policies have been working so well.
“Governor’s Councilor Marilyn Devaney, who lives around the corner from the home raided this morning, said, “This is so scary. This whole laissez-faire immigration thing is putting everyone at risk.”
AMEN, lady!
Here’s a good article, sent out by NAFBPO today, which relates.
4 Scary Ways Terror and Immigration Are Tied Together
[snip]We can only hope that the Times Square near-bombing will focus our attention on the conventional wisdom surrounding from the left surrounding immigration reform. First there’s the belief that no attempt at reform can succeed without a generous amnesty. Then, there’s the belief that immigration “coyotes” and other scam artists do not associate with terrorists. And finally, there’s the misguided belief that our relatively open border with Mexico, and thus by default the rest of the world, is no big deal, and can be resolved through the simple act of issuing more work visas.
In my own conversations with experts on immigration, the drug cartels and terrorism, it has always been an article of faith that while drug cartels certainly use illegal immigration as a conduit for smuggling drugs, terrorists are not welcome among the coyotes that smuggle migrants and vice versa. But that is changing.
In the laptop captured from a top FARC commander, evidence was found of links between Chavez and Russia (from where weapons and explosives would come and be transferred) and Hezbollah and drug syndicates (where FARC would help Hezbollah blow up pipelines carrying Mexican oil for America).
I’m not concerned about the links between terrorism and immigration because it’s the issue of the day. And it’s not because Arizona has passed legislation that enables local and state law enforcement to actually “enforce” a 1940 federal statute dealing with whether legal residents but not citizens of the U.S. have to carry “papers” (they do). Nor am I focused on it because the Senate is, once again, considering bringing up “compressive immigration reform.”
No, the events that have made me even more concerned about immigration are four-fold.
Great post!!
Thanks for the post. I picked up on that statement by Governor’s Councilor Devaney earlier when adding this thread to tomorrow’s ping.
You got it “B”!!
Ping! to AuntB’s post...
” This whole laissez-faire immigration thing is putting everyone at risk.””
Gee, ya think? The 9-11 attack itself was a product of executive indifference to uncontrolled immigration. If we had had a competent chief executive in office his first concern would have been to address that problem, since it is the means by which terrorists can continue to come and go at will.
” These two will be smugly happy that their policies have been working so well. “
All too true. It wasn’t that these two lacked awareness. They both intended to have essentially non-existent border control that permits uncontrolled immigration.
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