The jihadists’ deadly path to citizenship
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
America’s homeland security amnesia never ceases to amaze. In the aftermath of the botched Times Square terror attack over the weekend, Pakistani-born bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad’s U.S. citizenship status caused a bit of shock and awe. The Atlantic magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg’s response was typical: “I am struck by the fact that he is a naturalized American citizen, not a recent or temporary visitor.” Well, wake up and smell the deadly deception.
Shahzad’s path to American citizenship — he reportedly married an American woman, Huma Mian, in 2008 after spending a decade in the country on foreign student and employment visas — is a tried-and-true terror formula. Jihadists have been gaming the sham marriage racket with impunity for years. And immigration benefit fraud has provided invaluable cover and aid for U.S.-based Islamic plotters, including many other operatives planning attacks on New York City. As I’ve reported previously:
– El Sayyid A. Nosair wed Karen Ann Mills Sweeney to avoid deportation for overstaying his visa. He acquired U.S. citizenship, allowing him to remain in the country, and was later convicted for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that claimed six lives.
– Ali Mohamed became an American citizen after marrying a woman he met on a plane trip from Egypt to New York. Recently divorced, Linda Lee Sanchez wed Mohamed in Reno, Nev., after a six-week “courtship.” Mohamed became a top aide to Osama bin Laden and was later convicted for his role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa that killed 12 Americans and more than 200 others.
– Embassy bombing plotter Khalid Abu al Dahab obtained citizenship after marrying three different American women.
– Embassy bombing plotter Wadih el Hage, Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary, married April Ray in 1985 and became a naturalized citizen in 1989. Ray knew of her husband’s employment with bin Laden, but like many of these women in bogus marriages, she pleaded ignorance about the nature of her husband’s work. El Hage, she says, was a sweet man, and bin Laden “was a great boss.”
– Lebanon-born Chawki Youssef Hammoud, convicted in a Hezbollah cigarette-smuggling operation based out of Charlotte, N.C., married American citizen Jessica Fortune for a green card to remain in the country.
– Hammoud’s brother, Mohammed Hammoud, married three different American women. After arriving in the United States on a counterfeit visa, being ordered deported and filing an appeal, he wed Sabina Edwards to gain a green card. Federal immigration officials refused to award him legal status after this first marriage was deemed bogus in 1994. Undaunted, he married Jessica Wedel in May 1997 and, while still wed to her, paid Angela Tsioumas (already married to someone else, too) to marry him in Detroit. The Tsioumas union netted Mohammed Hammoud temporary legal residence to operate the terror cash scam. He was later convicted on 16 counts that included providing material support to Hezbollah.
– A total of eight Middle Eastern men who plotted to bomb New York landmarks in 1993 — Fadil Abdelgani, Amir Abdelgani, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, Tarig Elhassan, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, Fares Khallafalla, Mohammed Saleh, and Matarawy Mohammed Said Saleh — all obtained legal permanent residence by marrying American citizens.
A year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, homeland security officials cracked a massive illegal alien Middle Eastern marriage fraud ring in a sting dubbed “Operation Broken Vows.” Authorities were stunned by the scope of the operations, which stretched from Boston to South Carolina to California. But marriage fraud remains a treacherous path of least resistance. The waiting period for U.S. citizenship is cut by more than half for marriage visa beneficiaries. Sham marriage monitoring by backlogged homeland security investigators is practically nonexistent.
As former federal immigration official Michael Cutler warned years ago: “Immigration benefit fraud is certainly one of the major ‘dots’ that was not connected prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and remains a ‘dot’ that is not really being addressed the way it needs to be in order to secure our nation against criminals and terrorists who understand how important it is for them to ‘game’ the system as a part of the embedding process.”
Jihadists have knowingly and deliberately exploited our lax immigration and entrance policies to secure the rights and benefits of American citizenship while they plot mass murder — and we haven’t done a damned thing to stop them.
***
Related: Sen. Joe Lieberman proposes stripping citizenship from Americans who join foreign terrorist organizations:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is planning to introduce a bill that would allow the government to take away citizenship from Americans who join foreign terrorist organizations.
The proposal would amend current law that bars American citizens from fighting for foreign armies at the price of losing their citizenship.
“I think it’s time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations, whether they should not also be deprived automatically of their citizenship and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act,” Lieberman, who helms the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on Fox News.
But perhaps DHS and the State Department should concentrate on the homeland security front door — making sure jihadis don’t get citizenship and other immigration/entrance benefits in the first place — instead of waiting to deal with it on the back end after the fact.
Remember what I have told you all along, regarding More Terror?
"Not a matter of 'if,' but when..."
to Rush ( His idea during the Clinton plague upon America ) I am starting a file on “The One,” mostly starting from the election date. 
The election results were long expected, but now that the day has arrived it’s quite a letdown, anyway. Reading about the joy expressed by Hamas and Syria and Italy and Indonesia… contemplating Obama’s Secretary of State, or (God help us) Defense… Thinking about the USA becoming just like Sweden, only with a real army, and aircraft carriers, and nukes… First Lady Michelle…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
you too!
AARP and SEIU implicated, too:
http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/there-are-no-coincidences-anymore/
"So, we’re Argentina now?
I believe this is called theft in the real world.
The Republicans better make a campaign issue out of this. "
"The government wants everything we have. That much is clear now.
They won’t defend the country against terrorism. They won’t defend the borders of the country. They want to defund the military. They insist on alienating all our allies and sucking up to our enemies. They refuse to let us drill for oil but insist on bending over backwards to allow foreign companies to drill for the same oil. They won’t take their damned boots off the economy’s neck and they won’t do a damned thing about unemployment.
No, all they want to do is build their communist state where THEY get all the good stuff and WE stand outside the fence, begging the government for scraps for the rest of our unhappy lives.
But we’re supposed to pay for it. We’re supposed to give up more and more and more and more and more to help make this horror happen.
I am well and truly sick of these pigs. I never subscribed to the “eat the rich” idea, but I’m starting to find the idea almost attractive.
At just what point do we march on Washington with a real plan for making further “business” impossible there?"
Question: Are regular Americans starting to wake up to the fact the MSM constantly lies and pushes its own agenda?
Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized[38] Comments
Do you think Americans are waking up to the fact the MSM in this country lies and pushes its own agenda?
The MSM fell over backwards trying to claim the terrorist attack this weekend in Times Square was the work of the Tea Party. That’s beyond absurd.
When it was proven that Muslims and the Religion of Peace were, once again, behind an attack on Americans, the MSM seemed beyond disappointed. Contessa Brewer on CNN even went so far as to say she was frustrated that it wasn’t Tea Partiers involved, the way CNN and MSNBC wanted it to be.
It was a rare moment of candor for Brewer. And it proved the MSM in this country is Leftist-controlled and agenda-driven.
They want to apologize for and enable Muslims in all their efforts to kill Americans…and the MSM’s number one goal is to discredit and malign the Tea Party Movement, and all Americans who stand up against this current administration.
Can it be any more obvious?
May 4, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I think it’s part of a greater awakening. People are looking at Pres Obama, Napalitano, Holder, Pelosi, and the whole gaggle of LSM news anchors with bewilderment.
May 4, 2010 at 2:48 pm
So the LSM actually hopes that a member of the Tea Party Movement will do something violent so that they can write off the entire movement as violent and, therefore, not to be listened to.
Yet the Islamofacists have done various and repeated violent acts against non-military, peaceful Americans and the LSM bends over backwards to remind us that Muslims love peace.
May 4, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Your #2 probably describes millions of people. Ace from Ace of Spades had a brilliant post about a week ago about these sorts of “Independents” whose political analysis is based exclusively on shunning any distinctions or bothersome information. (Ace as usual put it very eloquently).
These folks do not want to be agitated by any consequential arguments or issues. They want nice.
The media is aimed exactly at these ignoramuses.
Illegals As Useful Tools Of Left
According to David Horowitz's invaluable "Discover the Networks" Web site, NISN has partnered closely with ultraradical groups like Code Pink, the Vanguard Public Foundation and the Institute for Policy Studies, among others, suggesting they've got lots of money. Illegals As Useful Tools Of Left
Obama Administration Reveals Number of US Warheads
by Rodan ( 17 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Military, Tranzis at May 4th, 2010 - 6:00 pm
The Progressive regime of Barack Hussein Obama has revealed the number of warheads the United States has in it’s arsenal. This comes as no shock as yesterday we had a post stating Obama would do this. He was once a supporter of the Nuclear Freeze movement of the early 1980’s and seeks to eliminate these weapons. By publicly stating what we have, he has tipped our hands.
Read the rest: U.S. reveals it has 5,113 nuclear warheads
Barack Hussein Obama’s Tranzi Progressive Ideology is dangerous. He views America as just another nation part of some fictitious Global Community.
Update: The media is reporting Obama was funny at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. However he used nasty mockery of Conservatives. He actually was pretty nasty.
You be the judge.
VIDEO AT LINK
This is 3rd world style demagoguery wrapped up as a joke. he let his true feeling show.
Tags: Nuclear Disarmament, Nukes
17 Comments »
The Left Has Lost Their Mind Over Guns
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USING LIGHT to heal battlefield injuries?
HOW TO hang a tire swing.
FIGHTING AGAINST a national electric grid? A picture is worth a thousand words. The purple and red are where the wind is:
You can see that the US Southeast especially has weak winds. In my view that part of the country needs nuclear power.