Trump’s administration is making more moves to battle illegal immigration. They announced that they are establishing a new section within the Justice Department to deal with the problem.
This new section will be housed within the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation. They will help remove citizenship from foreign-born individuals who fraudulently obtained citizenship by failing to disclose past convictions for serious crimes — including terrorism and war crimes.
The crimes include terrorism and war crimes and one wonders if this unit will go after other forms of immigration fraud – the kind that Rep. Ilhan Omar has been accused of.
“When a terrorist or sex offender becomes a U.S. citizen under false pretenses, it is an affront to our system — and it is especially offensive to those who fall victim to these criminals,” Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt said. “The new Denaturalization Section will further the Department’s efforts to pursue those who unlawfully obtained citizenship status and ensure that they are held accountable for their fraudulent conduct.”
Fox News reported that the department has seen an increase in such cases both because of an increased effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to root out fraud, as well as Operation Janus — an operation which began during the Obama administration and that identified hundreds of thousands of cases where paper fingerprint data was not entered into the centralized fingerprint database.
Officials have pointed to recent cases where the DOJ has secured the denaturalization of terrorists, war criminals and sex offenders.
They include: an individual convicted of terrorism in Egypt who admitted recruiting for Al Qaeda in America. He was denaturalized while in Egypt and had his passport taken away from him.
An individual who was convicted in Bosnia of executing 8 unarmed civilians and prisoners of war during the Balkans conflict. He was denaturalized while serving a sentence in Bosnia.
One individual who engaged in sexual contact with a seven-year-old family member and another who sexually abused a minor for multiple years.
