The Somalia-born Abdinassir Mohamud Ibrahim was living in a Kenyan camp in 2007 when he applied for U.S. refugee status and then entered the United States.
But in his application he made a variety of discoverable fraudulent claims to USCIS refugee visa adjudicators and, once he was living in the United States a year later, perpetuated those lies to obtain lawful permanent residence. He then committed the terrorism crimes of supporting the terrorist organization al Shabaab by recruiting for the group and, in at least one instance, sending cash to one of its operatives.
The key fraudulent claim on that initial refugee application was that Ibrahim was not born into the Haiye Habr Gedir Ayr clan and its Absiye sub-clan. Had he reported his true tribal affiliation, USCIS reviewers would have known that Ibrahim hailed from a well-known leading family whose members were leaders in violent Salifist “Islamic Courts”, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization at the time and predecessor organization of the al-Shabaab terrorist organization, the FBI much later discovered.
In claiming he was from a different clan that his own, Ibrahim covered up that close relatives included high profile Islamic Courts leaders such as Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who maintained close ties to al-Qaeda before he was killed in battle, and also the notorious al-Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayrow, so dangerous that the United States killed him in a targeted 2008 airstrike. By then Ibrahim was living in the United States, an individual that homeland security analysts would have considered at risk of seeking revenge.
Had USCIS adjudicators in the Kenyan camps discovered these connections through, for instance, cursory interviews in the camps or checks with regional governments or foreign intelligence agencies, they almost certainly would have denied Ibrahim’s initial refugee classification and not let him into the United States.
Instead, he settled in the San Antonio, Texas, area in 2008 and maintained clandestine communications with terrorist associates and Islamic Courts-connected family back in the Horn of Africa. In April 2009, USCIS had a second chance to discover who Ibrahim really was when the refugee applied for lawful permanent residence. Instead, Ibrahim obtained his LPR green card despite his prevarications on official applications and ongoing relationships with terrorists back home.
From 2010 on, he actively supported al-Shabaab, helping the terrorist organization to recruit by email. He was able eventually to apply for U.S. citizenship in 2012, maintaining all of the earlier lies, but providing yet a third opportunity for immigration vetting officers to discover who he was.
It took an FBI counterterrorism investigation in 2014 to discover all of Ibrahim’s earlier disqualifying frauds. One of Ibrahim’s friends back home, an al-Shabaab operative named “Hamza”, led to the unraveling of his immigration form lies and his criminal prosecution. Ibrahim at one point transferred at least $100 to support Hamza’s terrorist activities. Federal authorities ended up prosecuting Ibrahim for supporting terrorism and also for fraud, ending any possibility that he might also have conducted physical attacks inside the United States. A federal judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.