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HOMELAND SECURITY

DOJ Battle Against Chinese Communist Infiltration Reaches Historic Scale By Ivan Pentchoukov

https://www.theepochtimes.com/doj-battle-against-chinese-communist-infiltration-reaches-historic-scale_3260176.html

The Justice Department (DOJ) campaign to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s multifaceted onslaught on U.S. interests has ramped up to an unprecedented level, according to government officials and documents.

As of last month, the FBI was conducting roughly 1,000 investigations into China’s attempted theft of trade secrets, just one of many fronts in the communist regime’s wide-ranging campaign against the United States. Every FBI field office was working on trade secrets theft cases involving China with potential victims spanning almost every sector and industry, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

With the DOJ and the FBI under relentless partisan fire over politically charged domestic investigations dating back to the 2016 presidential election, the initiative to counteract the offensive by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up to a historic scale while going largely unnoticed. According to a review of DOJ press releases, the department has brought more indictments related to Chinese infiltration since 2019 than during the entire eight years of the Obama administration.

“We believe that no country poses a greater threat than communist China,” John Brown, an assistant director at the FBI, said during a Feb. 6 conference. “From our vantage point the United States has not faced a similar threat like this since the Soviet Union and the Cold War.”

Is America falling behind in opposing radical Islam? Kyle Shideler

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2020/03/02/is-america-falling-behind-in-opposing-radical-islam/

Americans expect their nation to be the leader in opposing serious threats to world peace and security. While there is room for differences regarding how best to approach these threats, Americans were at the front lines, real and rhetorical, in the battles with fascism and communism, as well as the war against radical Islam dubbed the Global War on Terror.

U.S. leadership -under President Trump- was indispensable in rolling back the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. And the U.S. has continued to aggressively target individual terrorist leaders, including the recent targeted killing of AQAP leader Qassim Al-Rimi and Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani.

But in the larger ideological fight the U.S. has been largely absent despite President Trump’s clarion call from Riyadh to “drive out” radicals from our midst.

As Lorenzo Vidino of the George Washington University Program on Extremism notes in Foreign Policy, major changes are taking place to the way European governments understand the threat posed by Islamist ideology, which they increasingly view as a more significant threat than kinetic jihadist violence. Vidino writes:

Various countries have adopted measures aimed at tackling certain aspects: banning foreign funding (as Austria did) or limiting it (as the Netherlands is discussing); training imams (as Germany does) and deporting radical ones (Italy does this more than any other country); and cutting public funding to organizations connected to Islamist networks for religious, social, pro-integration, anti-Islamophobia, or radicalization prevention activities (as Sweden recently did for a Muslim Brotherhood youth group that did not “fulfill the democracy requirement” necessary to receive aid).

FBI MISSED CHANCES TO STOP DOMESTIC TERROR ATTACKS

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/4/fbi-missed-chances-stop-domestic-terror-attacks-be/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push

The FBI missed opportunities to stop domestic terrorists from killing Americans because field offices failed to further investigate individuals who had been labeled homegrown violent extremists, the Justice Department watchdog said in a scathing report released Wednesday.

At least six terrorists who later carried out attacks killing a total of 70 people were on the FBI’s radar prior to the attacks. However, the agents quickly closed the cases, concluding the suspects were not threats to national security, according to the Justice Department inspector general.

Among the more high-profile individuals the FBI failed to recognize as a potential source of terrorism were Omar Mateen, who killed 49 individuals at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, Nidal Hasan, who massacred 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and Esteban Santiago, who killed five people in a 2017 terror attack at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the FBI’s counterterrorism program division managers failed to conduct consistent oversight of its homegrown violent extremist assessments, allowing potential terrorists to fall through the cracks.

Official Investigation into the shooting death of DHS whistleblower Philip Haney continues By Peter Barry Chowka

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/official_investigation_into_the_shooting_death_of_dhs_whistleblower_philip_haney_continues.html

The sheriff’s office in rural Amador County, California, which originally labeled the death by a single gunshot of DHS Obama era whistleblower Philip Haney last week as “self inflicted,” has now backed away from that assertion. A follow-up press release from the office of the Sheriff – Coroner on Monday had this to say:

On February 22, the Amador County Sheriff’s Office released initial details regarding Philip Haney being found deceased in our jurisdiction. . . Unfortunately, there was misinformation being immediately put out that we have determined Mr. Haney’s death to be a suicide. This is not the case. We are currently in the beginning phase of our investigation and any final determination as to the cause and manner of Mr. Haney’s death would be extremely premature and inappropriate. No determination will be made until all evidence is examined and analyzed.

This latest official statement, on top of an avalanche of comments by his friends and colleagues on social media, further opens the door to the widespread suspicion that Haney was the victim of politically motivated foul play.

Pentagon police chase ‘suspicious’ suspect through Arlington National Cemetery FBI now questioning man, who was ‘acting suspiciously’ By Ben Wolfgang

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/24/pentagon-police-chase-suspect-through-arlington-na/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push

A man was arrested after “acting suspiciously” in a Pentagon parking lot Monday and is now being questioned by the FBI, military officials said.

The suspect was approached by Pentagon security forces about 10:45 on Monday morning and then fled the area, spurring a chase through nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

It took authorities more than two hours to capture the man, and Pentagon Police, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Police, U.S. Park Police, and Arlington County Police were all involved in the search, officials said.“The suspect is currently being questioned by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency in coordination with the FBI. As this is now an ongoing investigation, we have no other details to provide at this time,” Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said in a statement.

The ISIS Plot in Kansas City You Heard Nothing About By Robert Spencer

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-isis-plot-in-kansas-city-you-heard-nothing-about/

A few years ago, Robert Lorenzo Hester, Jr. of Columbia, Missouri met “several young men who suggested that Islam was a religion that valued men like him.” That was when his troubles began: prosecutors announced Wednesday that they want Hester to serve twenty years in prison and be under supervision for the rest of his life for plotted a jihad massacre in Kansas City. His case shows yet again how politically correct willful ignorance regarding the motivating ideology and magnitude of the jihad threat renders us all vulnerable.

True to form, federal prosecutors are already busily ignoring the possibility that Hester was inspired to try to kill non-Muslims by Qur’anic exhortations such as “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89; cf. 9:5). According to the Columbia Tribune, they claim that “mental health issues combined with a mockery of his race and intellect by fellow soldiers led him to extremists ideologies.” Federal public defender Troy Stabenow also notes that Hester suffered from an “abusive childhood” and engaged in “drug use at an early age.” He “wanted to feel accepted and do something to make others proud, so he joined the Armed Forces,” but he didn’t stick.

Grassley, Ernst Want to Know How Al Qaeda Emir Came To America As A Refugee Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/02/grassley-ernst-want-know-how-al-qaeda-emir-came-daniel-greenfield/

I wrote about the Al Nouri case in the beginning of February. 

After engaging in terrorism in Iraq, an Al Qaeda leader came to America as a refugee and applied for Social Security disability benefits because his “injuries” in Iraq had made it too hard for him to work.

Only 2 years after being the Emir of an Al Qaeda group, Al-Nouri had traded the deserts of Al-Anbar for the deserts of the Southwest. How was an Al Qaeda leader able to move to the United States?

Easy. He claimed to be a refugee from Al Qaeda.

A quarter of refugees that year were Iraqis. The Al Qaeda leader was one of 13,823 Iraqi refugees. The huge increase from 1,608 in 2007, made any real screening of the Iraqis all but impossible. And, worse still, Iraqis, like Al-Nouri, were in the top 3 refugee groups and their claims were processed ‘in-country’.

“In-country processing”, as noted by the Center of American Progress, makes “the process less onerous and cumbersome for Iraqis seeking asylum by allowing for in-country visa processing, making screening less restrictive.” And what migrants from Al-Qaeda’s stronghold needed was less restrictive screenings.

The less restrictive screenings were one of Senator Ted Kennedy’s final immigration gifts to America. The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act was introduced by Ted Kennedy, backed by Grover Norquist, and co-sponsored by Joe Biden, Pat Leahy, Chuck Hagel, Dick Durbin, Bob Menendez and Barack Obama.

Homeland Security to Change International Student Visa Rule to Reduce Overstay

https://www.theepochtimes.com/homeland-security-to-change-international-student-visa-rule-to-reduce-overstay_3241876.html

A new visa rule from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expected to be published this February would make it more difficult for international students to stay in the country after finishing their degree.

The DHS currently practices a rule known as “duration of status,” which means that international students can stay in the United States indefinitely as long as they maintain their status as students and do not violate the terms of their visa. This rule makes it possible for students to transfer to another school to work towards a higher degree or take an extra year to pursue a double major. Effectively, the length of their stay in the country is determined by how long they needed to finish their academic programs, rather than their visa expiration date.

In a proposed new guideline, however, the DHS says it is going to establish a fixed “maximum period of authorized stay” for student visa holders and requires them to apply for new permission every time there is a change in their academic plans, such as a transition from an undergraduate to a graduate-level program. Consent will also be needed if students need a longer time than expected to finish their degree.

The new rule to replace existing “duration of status” does not say how long exactly the maximum period of stay for student visa holders would be. It does mention, however, that there would be “options for extensions” for each relevant visa category.

“The failure to provide certain categories of nonimmigrants with specific dates for their authorized periods of stay can cause confusion over how long they may lawfully remain in the United States and has complicated the efforts to reduce overstay rates for nonimmigrant students,” a DHS statement justifying the new rule reads. “The clarity created by date-certain admissions will help reduce the overstay rate.”

How the ‘Interpreter’ Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America How could there be more Iraqi interpreters than there are American troops? Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/how-interpreter-scam-brought-75000-iraqis-and-daniel-greenfield/

The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon. The military brass was lobbying for 6,000 special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for American forces in the country. These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.

That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.

How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?

The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade using the same claim that it’s needed to save the lives of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who are risking death by helping American soldiers.

In one decade, the United States has handed out 75,250 of these visas to Iraqi and Afghan employees, and their dependents. Between 2007 and 2017, they represented 1 percent of all immigrant visas.

The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States. Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary. But that would have come out of the defense budget. The SIV scam passes the buck to local cities and states, to ordinary taxpayers and communities who have to hire interpreters who speak Pashto to interact with the children of the interpreters who are swamping local school systems.

Court Caves to CAIR Again Case against Hamid Hayat dismissed “due to the passage of time.” Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/court-caves-cair-again-lloyd-billingsley/

“Due to the passage of time, the government now moves this Court to dismiss, in the interest of justice, the indictments in this case,” the office of U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott declared Friday. That meant that the U.S. Attorney would not seek a new trial for Hamid Hayat of Lodi, California, convicted on terrorist charges in 2006.

“There aren’t words to express how relieved we are that Hamid is finally going to be truly free,” said Sacramento Valley CAIR executive director Basim Elkarra in a statement. “An innocent man spent nearly 14 years in prison, a family was torn apart and an entire community was left traumatized due to prosecution taking advantage of anti-Muslim, post-9/11 hysteria.” As the U.S. Attorney also indicated, the CAIR boss was overlooking a few realities.

On July 30, 2019, the District Court entered an order, “vacating defendant Hamid Hayat’s conviction and sentence, which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had earlier affirmed.” The Ninth Circuit is the most liberal appeal court in the nation.

In 2006, federal judge Garland E. Burrell sentenced Hamid Hayat to 24 years in prison for, as the U.S. Department of Justice explained, “a series of terrorism charges related to his 2003/2004 attendance at a jihadi training camp in Pakistan and his 2005 return to the United States with the intent to wage violent jihad.”