Vallmoe Shqaire, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship who had been living in Los Angeles, Calif., entered the United States on a visitor's visa in 1999. It would not be discovered for nearly a decade that his real name is Mahmad hadr Mahmad Shakir and that the Israeli government had significant terrorism-related records about him. That same year, 1999, he paid $500 to a woman to marry him, a so-called "green card marriage" that didn't work out, although a second marriage attempt did. He was then able to apply for and successfully obtain lawful permanent residence and eventually obtained citizenship in 2008.
Vetting failure occurred, evidently, because USCIS officers failed to cross-check fingerprints or other biometrics with Israeli intelligence for his 2008 security vetting, which would have turned up a trove.
It wasn’t until 2013, and only because Shqaire had fallen under investigation for financial fraud, that the DOJ requested records from Israel under a mutual assistance agreement. The request yielded detailed Israeli court records and confessions as to Shqaire’s trusted role as a PLO guerilla fighter and operative during the 1980s who was convicted in 1991 of planting a bomb on a bus filled with civilians (it failed to explode). In 2010, Shqaire confessed his PLO involvement in a terrorist team known as the "Shabeda cell" and also to criminal activities to LA sheriff’s deputies investigating him for grand theft auto.
To gain visas and legal status and citizenship in the many years prior to 2013, when he came under financial fraud investigation and the Israeli records were requested, Shqaire illegally omitted the disqualifying facts of his life history and his real birth name. Shqaire's work in the Shabeda cell also required that he train with arms and explosives and that he beat Arabs suspected of collaborating with Israel.
One of those victims died of stab wounds.
A USCIS officer interviewed Shqaire, looked over his application for legal residence, then approved it the same day, court records show. For the citizenship petition, a USCIS officer interviewed Shqaire, asked him to reiterate answers to some of the questions under oath (he lied), and about a month later that, too, was approved. CNN reported that the U.S. immigration officer who handled his citizenship application said she merely relied on him to "provide complete and truthful answers" about his criminal past and associations. Only if he had told the truth about his bombing conviction would she have requested further documentation. Naturally, Shqaire did not offer that personal history.
A CNN story quoted a former U.S. immigration official involved in the vetting process in 2008 saying that a mandatory background check in place at the time should have detected the terrorism conviction, whether or not an applicant disclosed it. Left unclear was whether the check took place or, if so, was defeated by the false name. Regardless, a check of his fingerprints with the Israelis years later led to his undoing.