I've been mulling over the recent religious visa fraud arrests in Boston, as well as the MAS/ACLU forum held at the Chelmsford, MA mosque last Friday night.....and I got me some questions:
The newspapers report that four people were arrested in Massachusetts in this sweep (33 people were arrested nation-wide). However, the media has only provided information on three of them: Imam Abdul Hannan, Imam Muhammed Masood, and Masood's 24-year old son Hassan. What's the scoop on Number 4? I've got a call into the ICE Public Relations, will let you know what I hear back.
At the MAS/ACLU forum last Friday, Imam Abdul Hannan made a provocative statement: "They don't know who they are dealing with." Was he referring to his jailers or to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials? And what exactly did he mean by that?
The imams in Massachusetts seems to have lots of familial relations. The Boston Herald reports that Imams Hannan and Masood are brothers-in-law. That strikes me as quite a coincidence. Does religious zeal run in the family? Are there other family members here (or maybe no longer here) who are imams? If so, did they receive their visas through Muhammed Khalil too?
Regarding the religious visa program, is the program intended to provide temporary or permanent placement of religious clerics? How many clerics who come here end up staying permanently? Are the clerics supposed to bring over their parents, spouse, children and cousins? When did Imams Massod and Hannan come here, how many people have they brought over and when did those folks come?
Who thought up this religious visa program? How long will it last? Given that the Omar Abdul Rahman, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing came here on a religious visa - among other scary characters - why do we still have this program? Why should clerics get ahead of the millions of other people who want to come to the U.S.?
Thanks for staying on top of this.
Posted by: Jill | December 06, 2006 at 04:14 PM