I don’t know. Maybe someone has already dug out the immigration information for Ahmad Khan Rahami (and I will be pleasantly surprised).
But, I woke up this morning and figured you would be wondering so I needed to at least address the fact that I don’t know, and am not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which of many LEGAL programs his family might have used.
***Update*** Here is a report that says he came as a child in a family that sought asylum here, so that makes him a refugee. The asylum process is the other half of the Refugee Admissions Program and the difference is that in the case of asylum, the migrant gets in here on his or her own steam, usually illegally, and then applies for asylum. Clearly, if he is now a citizen, his father/family were approved political refugees. The other type of refugee we usually write about is chosen abroad and flown here.
It is not as simple to figure out how Afghans got here as it is with the Somalis. The Somalis we know are probably 95% (higher maybe) refugees admitted through the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, but Afghans have gotten in here over decades through many legal and illegal avenues.
By the way, when I opened RRW just now I see that our old post about Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota being responsible for the large number of Somalis in St.Cloud went viral overnight. You might want to have a look at it if you’ve never seen it, or have forgotten it. Click here to see all about LSS of Minnesota and St. Cloud.
People who have never paid attention before are starting to ask—how the h*** are we getting so many Muslims admitted to the US?
Back to Rahami:
CNN has a rather lengthy discussion about his activities as an adult, see here, this morning. And, I did see in one report yesterday that he really hates gays! But, like with so many other Islamic terrorists, the federal government is going to hold tightly any information on the immigration history of the terrorist’s family.
I do know that Elizabeth, NJ (Rahami’s home town) is one of three major resettlement sites in New Jersey and it is the International Rescue Committee that is placing more Muslims there. (The IRC is the same federal contractor operating in Missoula, MT now.)
Enterprising reporters might call the IRC in Elizabeth and ask if the Rahami’s are one of their families.
Or, maybe Senator Sessions could wring it out of the USCIS for his hearing tomorrow.
I did find this interesting article on how Afghans can get to the US. It’s a how-to guide in English. The article mentions using the Diversity Visa Lottery:
The easiest way is to enter the Diversity Immigrant Lottery. Each year approximately 50,000 green cards are issued to foreigners chosen randomly from a computer program.
If more Americans understood how that works there would be as much outrage as there is now about refugees. But, I’m not going there now because I have many more interesting things I want to post today.
So, as soon as someone finds out how this particular terrorist’s family got here, let me know and I’ll post it (it could years from now before we find out!).