Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen, suspected in the 2014 murder of an Iraqi policeman, has been in custody in the Sacramento County Main Jail since his arrest in 2018. Last month, a Sacramento judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to extradite him back to Iraq to face trial. Ameen’s attorneys had expected him to be subsequently released.
Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents yesterday arrested Ameen again, this time for lying on his refugee application. He is now again facing removal back to his home country.
Federal court records reveal that the ICE case against Ameen was presented at the time of his initial 2018 arrest but had been dormant while his possible extradition was being decided. According to the Sacramento Bee:
When asked in his written Sworn Statement in support of his refugee application ‘Have you ever engaged in . . . any other form of terrorist activity? Ameen answered ‘no,’” the court records say. In actuality, Ameen is alleged to have engaged in various forms of terrorist activity, from 2004 through his departure from the region for the United States in 2014.
The records say that because Ameen allegedly lied about ties to terror groups he was granted permission to move to the United States under false pretenses.
“Ameen’s negative answers cut off a line of questioning relevant to his admissibility to the United States,” prosecutors wrote. “Based on the written and verbal answers given by Ameen, his refugee application was approved by USCIS on June 5, 2014.”
In other news, as we told you on May 4, the Biden administration has again raised the refugee allotment for Fiscal Year 2021 to 62,500, up from 15,000.
For more, see the Sacramento Bee.