This sounds like a false flag operation to me. The Justice Department wanted to prove that civil criminal investigations of terror ops is the way to go. So they greenlighted these guys immigration permits knowing they were bad guys and set them up to prove their case. Now the real bad news is that we have more jihadists sitting in US prisons to stir the pot.
Not at all out of the realm of possibility for this regime. It sounds like the jihadi version of Operation Gunwalker.