The “German” arsonist arrested in the recent Los Angeles crime spree had previously been denied refugee status in Canada. Here is the story from the Montreal Gazette:
The mother of a former Vancouver man facing charges in the U.S. for a multi-million-dollar arson spree at one time pleaded to Canadian immigration officials to allow her and her son to stay in this country.
Harry Burkhart, 24, was charged Wednesday with 37 counts of arson for deliberately setting at least 50 fires, torching cars, garages and homes in Los Angeles and reportedly causing about $3 million in damages.
Burkhart was arrested during a routine traffic stop while driving a minivan with British Columbia licence plates.
The story of how Dorothee Burkhart and her son ended up in L.A. begins with their arrival in Canada in September 2007.
According to Federal Court documents obtained by Postmedia News, the two fled Germany and applied for refugee status in Canada, claiming they feared they would be imprisoned, tortured and killed if they were sent back to their home country.
[….]
During the hearing, the minister of citizenship and immigration intervened. The minister requested Dorothee Burkhart be barred from refugee protection as she had committed a serious crime in Germany.
The refugee claim was denied in late 2009 and, upon review of the application in May 2010, the Federal Court agreed.
Then the question becomes—how the h*** did they get into the US?
Surely with a legal decision against them in Canada as recently as 2010, they should have been easily detected by ICE.
Blogger Debbie Schlussel asks the same question and then tells us more, here, about the Chechen-born Burkhart and his mama.
The mother of Harry Burkhart, the man who set several dozen arson fires in Hollywood last week, is exactly the kind of person who doesn’t belong in America and should be deported. And, after you read about both mother and son, you’ll wonder how either of them were able to get into the U.S. Well, we know how the son got on: a lax visa system, in which Customs and Border Protection and State Department employees use little scrutiny or time, before rushing through the rubber stamping of the golden ticket into the U.S., as I’ve been writing about for years, and as internal Homeland Security documents confirmed, earlier this week. Oh, and by the way, Burkhart was born in Muslim Chechnya. Hmmm . . . (Don’t worry, though. In the Hollywood movie, he’ll be a Christian from Texas.)