Tancredo fights on..

Representative Tom Tancredo Asks Bush about Citizenship Safeguards

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) today sent a letter to President Bush asking what measures are being taken to prevent terrorists from obtaining citizenship, and offered to assist the President in developing stricter legal safeguards for the naturalization process. The statement came in the wake of new Congressional testimony exposing numerous examples of terrorists slipping through the U.S. immigration system and fraudulently becoming U.S. citizens.

“I think everyone can agree that it will be difficult to keep Americans safe while we are giving citizenship to people like Iyman Faris, Nada Nadim Prouty, Ahmed Al Halabi, and Ali Khaled Steitiye,” Tancredo said. “These few examples merely scratch the surface of what appears to be a very widespread phenomenon.” 

According to testimony, of the 1,049,872 immigrants granted U.S. citizenship under Citizenship USA, a whopping 71,557 were later found to have FBI criminal records, including INS administrative actions, and misdemeanor and felony arrests and convictions.

Tancredo concluded, “This information seems to illuminate a disturbing trend, and I would like to know more about what is currently being done to prevent fraudulent, dangerous naturalizations from occurring. I would also like to express my willingness to work with you on developing additional legislative safeguards in order to better ensure that people aren’t ‘slipping through the cracks’ of our naturalization process.”

A copy of the testimony can be found here: http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/Jenks080117.pdf