One of the Boston bombers passed the U.S. citizenship test months before the 2013 terror attack.
The older of the two brothers that detonated explosives at the Boston marathon, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, took and passed the citizenship test three months before the attack, reported the Boston Globe.
Tsarnaev correctly answered questions about slavery and the Constitution, according to previously confidential federal immigration records obtained by the Boston Globe with a Freedom of Information Act request, along with hundreds of pages of other files. (RELATED: At Least 15 US ‘Citizen’ Terrorists Are Also Legal Immigrants)
He and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, are ethnic Chechans who were invited into the country as refugees from Kazakhstan. Dzhokhar applied for citizenship and was naturalized Sept. 11, 2012. Tamerlan also applied for citizenship, but his application was pending when he carried out the attack — perhaps because Russian intelligence had flagged him in 2011 as potentially radicalized.
But Tamerlan was somehow allowed legal status and a path to citizenship. He swore his allegiance to the United States and denied any links to terrorism at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston shortly before the attack.
The vetting process has come under fire recently as the European migrant crisis continues to worsen and President Barack Obama implements a plan to admit thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States. Republican lawmakers in particular have expressed concern the vetting process is not sufficient to weed out migrants who pose a threat to national security. (RELATED: House-Passed Refugee Bill Ignores These Key Concerns)
Republican Sen. [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore] pressed Matthew Emrich, associate director of fraud detection and national security at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on the subject in October. “Aren’t you left to basically looking at whatever document [Syrian applicants] produce in conducting an interview?” he asked.
Emrich repeatedly asserted USCIS does everything in its power to vet applicants.
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