Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) seems to be dropping hints that he is working on a new bill to de-naturalize citizens of the United States who are convicted of terrorism crimes, including participating in the plotting process of such a crime. After a series of terrorist attacks against Americans, allegedly perpetrated by naturalized citizens hailing primarily from West Africa and the Middle East, Moore said he would be creating legislation that would take away naturalized citizenship from those involved in terrorism.
“This horrific pattern of naturalized citizens committing acts of terrorism against the American people must end,” Moore stated in response to a post on X which highlighted that the Austin shooter, Old Dominion shooter, NYC teen bombers, and the individual who attacked a synagogue in Michigan were all naturalized citizens. The post then asked, “Who are we giving citizenship to in America? We have a legal immigration problem.”
Moore stated that he would soon introduce a bill that will strip away naturalized citizenship and boot any naturalized citizens who have been convicted of committing terrorism, plotting terrorist acts, joining terrorist organizations, or providing terrorist groups with material support. One example of such an individual would be Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, who murdered one American and injured two others in a shooting at Virginia’s Old Dominion University.
According to Breitbart News, Jalloh was arrested in 2016 and charged by the Justice Department after he was busted plotting a terrorist attack against American citizens. Jalloh traveled to Libya at one point in order to make contact with the members of terror organization ISIS, or the Islamic State. The following year, in October, Jalloh pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 11 years behind bars.
He also received five years of supervised release, despite the pleading of prosecutors to slap him with a 20-year sentence. Fast forward to December 2024, Jalloh was let out of prison. He was still on supervised release when he carried out the shooting at Old Dominion. Another example was 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon.
Ghazali rammed his vehicle into Temple Israel, a Reform Jewish synagogue, located in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The Lebanese man legally immigrated to the United States in May 2011, thanks to a green card he received after marrying an American citizen. Ghazali then applied for naturalized citizenship in October 2015.
In February 2016, he was granted his citizenship through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Then there is the case of Ndia Diagne, a naturalized citizen from Senegal, who committed an act of terrorism in Austin, Texas. Diagne killed three Americans and injured more than a dozen in the incident. At the time of the attack, Diagne was sporting a “Property of Allah” t-shirt. He also had a copy of the Quran in his vehicle.
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Diagne applied for his citizenship over a decade ago and was also granted it by the USCIS in 2016. Two teens, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, have been accused of trying to bomb critics of Islam outside Gracie Mansion. Balat’s parents are naturalized citizens hailing from Turkey, while Kayumi’s family came from Afghanistan.
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