This case from San Antonio gives us a little window into the human smuggling industry that might be responsible for bringing Islamic terrorists across the southern border. We have told you about other cases of Somalis coming across our border illegally here and here.
From the San Antonio News-Express:
A Somali man suspected of having ties to terror groups pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of making false statements on an application for U.S. asylum, but chose to go to trial on a third charge in San Antonio.
Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, 24, has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since entering the country through Brownsville in March 2008 and later applying for asylum.
Dhakane admitted he mischaracterized how he entered the country, including details about his life in Brazil, and that he falsely passed off a woman as his wife so she also could enter the United States.
He faces up to 25 years on each charge. The indictment alleges he raped and threatened the woman, which he denied.
The multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Force alleges in an indictment that he failed to disclose on his application that from before Sept. 11, 2001, through January 2003, Dhakane had been a member of the wire-transfer network Al-Barakat and an Islamic militant group in Somalia, Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (AIAI), both on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Terrorist entities.
Dhakane told U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez that he’s Christian and denied links to terrorist groups. Rodriguez set trial on those allegations for Nov. 15.
He says he is a Christian? He already admitted to a couple of big lies, then we are expected to believe he is telling the truth now.
The indictment also alleged Dhakane failed to say he was part of and later ran a large-scale organization that smuggled, or tried to smuggle, hundreds of people from Brazil into the United States, among them “several AIAI-affiliated Somalis.”
Dhakane told the judge he denied being part of any smuggling group.