The terror suspect accused of targeting police officers in Pennsylvania entered the United States as a foreign relative of a newly naturalized immigrant, a process known as “chain migration,” according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Ahmed Amin El-Mofty, a 51-year-old from Egypt, allegedly targeted Pennsylvania police officers last week, firing multiple shots at officers while they were sitting in their police vehicles, according to FOX43. In one instance, El-Mofty shot into a police car and wounded a female officer.
Afterwards, Pennsylvania police caught up with El-Mofty and exchanged gunfire with him in a shootout that ultimately ended in the terror suspect being shot and killed at the scene.
Name of suspect just released: Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty, 51 years old @CBS21NEWS pic.twitter.com/aA57W0W3Mw
— Courtney Highfield (@CourtHighfield) December 23, 2017
DHS spokesperson Tyler Houlton in a statement called the case a “terror attack” and confirmed that El-Mofty entered the U.S. as a chain migrant, the term used to describe foreign nationals who enter the U.S. simply because they have foreign relatives living in the country. Family-based chain migration makes up more than 70 percent of all legal immigration to the U.S.
Houlton confirmed:
“Ahmed Amin El-Mofty was a naturalized U.S. citizen who was admitted to the United States from Egypt on a family-based immigrant visa. El-Mofty was killed yesterday in a shootout after allegedly opening fire and targeting police at multiple locations in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The long chain of migration that led to the suspect’s admission into the United States was initiated years ago by a distant relative of the susupect. One of the recent links in that chain was an extended family member admitted into the United States from Egypt on a F24 visa.
BREAKING: My statement on Immigration Backgrounds of Recent Terror-Related Suspects: pic.twitter.com/I3JfZOfuBh
— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) December 24, 2017
The latest revelation of chain migration importing a terror suspect comes less than a month after accused suicide-bomber Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladesh national, allegedly attempted to detonate his bomb in New York City.
As Breitbart News reported, Ullah, as confirmed by DHS, entered the U.S. in 2011 as a chain migrant. Ullah came to the U.S. through the chain migration F43 visa, allowing him to obtain a Green Card simply because his father’s brother or sister had recently been naturalized as a U.S. citizen.
JUST IN: 27 y/o Terrorist who is from Bangladesh and was living in Brooklyn, told authorities “They’ve been bombing in my country and I wanted to do damage here, Terrorist was also a cab driver. pic.twitter.com/vhtfzadgoc
— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) December 11, 2017
A month before Ullah allegedly attempted to detonate his suicide-bomb in New York City, Uzbek national 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov allegedly murdered at least eight individuals in an ISIS-inspired attack.
Like El-Mofty and Ullah, Saipov was allowed to enter the U.S. through frivolous immigration policy. In 2010, Saipov won one of the 50,000 visas randomly allotted every year under the Diversity Visa Lottery.
The Visa Lottery doles out 50,000 visas annually to foreign nationals from a multitude of countries. The countries include those with terrorist problems, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Yemen, and Uzbekistan.
Expert: Diversity Visa Lottery Used by NYC Terror Suspect ‘Ideally Suited For Terrorists’ https://t.co/q7k9fAMyHK
— John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) November 3, 2017
Houlton reitorrated President Trump’s administration’s demand that the Republican-controlled Congress end both chain migration and the Visa Lottery.
“Both chain migration and the diversity visa lottery program have been exploited by terrorists to attack our country,” Houlton said. “Not only are the programs less effective at driving economic growth than merit-based immigration systems used by nearly all other countries, the programs make it more difficult to keep dangerous people out of the United States and to protect the safety of every American.”
In total, about 9.3 million foreign nationals have entered the U.S. since 2005 because of chain migration, making it the largest driver of legal immigration to the country.
As Breitbart News reported, chain migration makes up more than 70 percent of all legal immigration — with every two new immigrants bringing seven foreign relatives with them.
Diveristy Visa Lottery, which the NYC terror suspect arrived on, imported 5M foreigners thru chain migration. https://t.co/AbzwPC5h17
— John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) November 4, 2017
Likewise, since 2007, nearly 30,000 foreign nationals from Iran, Syria and Sudan — three countries which support international terrorism — have been allowed to enter the U.S. through the Visa Lottery, as Breitbart News reported.
Over the last half-decade between 2012 and 2016, as Breitbart News reported, 72,794 foreign nationals have come to the U.S. on the Visa Lottery from countries that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has designated as terrorist-sponsors.
Every year, more than 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants are admitted to the U.S., with the current foreign-born population booming to an unprecedented high of roughly 44 million individuals. Mass immigration to the U.S. has been at the expense of American workers in the working and middle-class who have been forced to compete with foreign labor while their wages have remained stagnant.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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