{"id":23003,"date":"2020-05-26T13:17:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T17:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23003"},"modified":"2020-05-26T13:17:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T17:17:29","slug":"citizenship-requirements-immigrants-terror-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/05\/26\/citizenship-requirements-immigrants-terror-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"From Syria Without Love: Future Jihadist Went to the \u2018Front of the Line\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Syrian-born son of a naturalized U.S. citizen was killed trying to shoot his way onto a Naval installation in Texas last week. A security loophole in America\u2019s immigration system opened the way for Adam Salim Alsahli\u2019s<\/a> suicide mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to reports, Alsahli, 20, drove to the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station wearing an Arab head-wrap garment, with Arabic language music blaring from his vehicle. After an exchange of gunfire with guards, the former student at a local community college<\/a> lay dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did it come to this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Center for Immigration Studies<\/a> learned that Alsahli was able to move to the U.S. in 2014 with his mother at the height of the Syrian civil war, thanks to his Syrian father gaining naturalized U.S. citizenship in 1984. The younger Alsahli was born in Syria in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough\nhis children and their mother were born in and resided in the Middle East, the\nfather’s U.S. citizenship conferred U.S. citizenship on Adam Alsahli, since he properly\nregistered a declaration at a U.S. embassy or consulate office overseas. That\napparently happened with Adam Alsahli because by the age of three, in the year\n2002, he was granted an American passport that was repeatedly renewed over the\nyears,\u201d CIS reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alsahli\u2019s\ncase illustrates how conferred U.S. citizenship enables individuals to enter\nthis country without the customary security screening — even when coming from\na region with terrorist connections. When Alsahli arrived in America six years\nago, he \u201cwould have been moved\nright to the front of the line with almost no security vetting,\u201d CIS said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Vaughan, the center\u2019s director of policy studies, says\n\u201cretained citizenship\u201d status presents a problem when individuals holding\nAmerican passports have no meaningful connection to the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is definitely a vulnerability in our system; we can’t\nreally deny entry to a U.S. citizen. But over many years, mainly to accommodate\nthe families of American expatriates, there has been an erosion of citizenship\nretention requirements, and erosion of the notion that a U.S. citizen should\nhave some meaningful ties with this country, especially if they’re spending\ntheir lives outside of the country,\u201d Vaughn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though little is yet\nknown about Alsahli\u2019s comings and goings, the FBI branded his assault on the\nNaval Air Station \u201cterrorism related.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials identified social media accounts<\/a> linked to the shooter. Online postings by these accounts expressed support for ISIS and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). One personal account listed him as a “student at Umm Al-Qura University” in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The Corpus Christi shooting occurred days after the FBI announced it found a link between al Qaeda and a Saudi military trainee who killed three U.S. sailors in a terror attack last year on Naval Air Station Pensacola<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaughn calls the Alsahli case \u201can example of why we need stricter [citizenship]retention requirements. There are tens of thousands of people around the world, many living in areas hostile to the United States, who are U.S. citizens, but for whom that citizenship is just a matter of convenience, without any understanding or affinity for our country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Syrian-born son of a naturalized U.S. citizen was killed trying to shoot his way onto a Naval installation in Texas last week. A security loophole in America\u2019s immigration system opened the way for Adam Salim Alsahli\u2019s suicide mission. According to reports, Alsahli, 20, drove to the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station wearing an Arab<\/p>\n

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