Republican senators Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions demanded details from the Obama administration Wednesday regarding the immigration history of the growing number of U.S. residents arrested on terror-related charges.
Cruz and Sessions identified 72 U.S. residents publicly charged in the past year for conspiring to help, attempting to help, or actually helping terror networks, such as the Islamic State, and asked the Obama administration to fill in missing details regarding their immigration history. (RELATED: Another New Jersey Homegrown Terror Suspect Arrested)
“We would like to understand more about these individuals, and others similarly situated in recent history, and the nexus between terrorism and our immigration system,” they wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Cruz and Sessions provided an incomplete chart with the letter, which they’re asking the Obama administration to fill in by September 4. They want details, such as citizenship status, the date of naturalization and the immigration status of the parents of those 72 charged with terror crimes.
They call the increase in homegrown terror “alarming” in the letter, and cite a recent warning from FBI director James Comey, who told Congress: ‘I cannot see me stopping these [terrorist plots] indefinitely.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently said it’s combating homegrown terror by marketing U.S. citizenship to immigrants, and the FBI is now referring some potential terror suspects to counseling instead of immediately arresting them.
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