In May of 2010, LWJ reported on a terror alert issued to Texas authorities to be on the lookout for Somali men associated with the terror group Shabaab who may have crossed into the US illegally from Mexico.
The most alarming case was that of a Somali immigrant, Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, who had been accused of operating a human smuggling ring. The operation is said to have facilitated the crossing of hundreds of Somali immigrants into the US, many of whom concern authorities for their potential ties to East African terror networks.
Thursday night, a federal judge in San Antonio sentenced Dhakane to 10 years in prison, after which he will placed under supervised release for three years.
Dhakane pleaded guilty on Nov. 2 to two counts of lying on his asylum application, and the Justice Department said in a statement that he failed to acknowledge he had been a member of, or associated with, al-Barakat and Al-Ittihad Al-Islami, from prior to Sept. 11, 2001, until January 2003.
The Justice Department said Dhakane also provided false information concerning his entry into the United States when he claimed he and his wife traveled from Somalia to Mexico via Russia, Cuba, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Instead, the statement said, from June 2006 until March 2008, Dhakane resided in Brazil where he participated in — and later ran — a large-scale human smuggling enterprise.
Despite Dhakane’s denial of sneaking potential terrorists into the country, the San Antonio Express reported, based on a Justice Department memo, that authorities believed Dhakane facilitated the entry of “violent jihadists” into America.
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5 Comments
I sure hope his supervision after he serves the time is supervised deportation.
Are we going to deport him, after he serves his time in prison? Hopefully, we have not made him a citizen.
I’m not sure if the procedure is for the judge to sentence the person without considering their immigration status (as that status is an administrative not judicial issue).
The ICE have have program which verifies the immigration status of people in jail for a felony (i.e. an offence which carries a prison sentence of one year or more) and places an “ICE Hold” on the person if they are a legal permanent resident or an illegal immigrant so that when the sentence is completed he is not released but handed to ICE for deportation. In either of those cases he should be deported (though if he’s effectively stateless then that might complicate matters though that would mean an indefinite ICE detention until they figure out where he should go).
He’s not a citizen (see the PDF below) as citizenship requires 5 years residence in the USA after becoming a legal resident through asylum which would not be possible if he was in Brazil from 2006 to 2008 then applied for asylum in 2008 and then detained in 2010 on entry into the US. It would depend on when he arrived in the US but as the basis for the lie he was found guilty of finished in 2003 I presume must have applied for asylum after that date.
The PDFs here make for interesting reading
http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/370
particularly http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1554.pdf
This is a translation from Somali to English of a transcript of a CW (cooperating witness i.e. an informant) wearing a wire. AD looks like a slime ball on several levels.
Given all the potential stuff he wasn’t charged with I suspect AD might have been turned to destroy this (widespread … money from England, contacts in Spain, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sweden, Brazil and Mexico) immigration and money-transfer ring and “clean up” those already here. As those will be administrative procedures I don’t think you’ll hear too much about them.
There is a good outline in the prosecutors sentencing recommendation
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1505.pdf
this points out:
That would explain the supervised release. It seems like a dangerous state of affairs for other potentially more active Somalis.
just ten years?
Where is the justice for the victims? Hopefully the slavery and human smuggling which this individual may be associated are being investigated for potential future charges.
Why not deport him now….why should the US taxpayer take care of this clown? Somalia is the next Afghanistan and our government continues to ignore it just like they did Afghanistan in the 1990’s.