Khaled Abu al-Dahab, 57, who the US government says is a senior al Qaeda operative, was naturalized as a US citizen in 1997. He had come to the country a decade before, in 1986, on a non-immigrant visa. He married three times in the US — a turn of events that would ultimately cost him his citizenship: lying about his third marriage during his citizenship application process, among other inconsistencies — not his alleged terrorist activities — are what eventually cost him his blue passport.
Courthouse News reports that US District Judge Beryl Howell hardly mentioned Dahab's confessed terrorist activities in his ruling, instead focusing on the fact that he had lied about his marital and travel histories — he said he hadn't left the country in a five-year period, though he had — and falsely claimed to be a US citizen on an employment application.
Howell found that these lies meant that he had illegally procured his US citizenship. "The defendant's false testimony and statements on these three occasions establish by clear, unequivocal, and convincing — indeed, undisputed — evidence that the defendant procured his citizenship illegally," Howell stated in his 17-page opinion.
The government has other concerns. Dahab, who has been convicted of crimes related to terrorism in Egypt, where he now lives, has admitted to being a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. EIJ was classified as a terrorist organization by the US in 2001.
Reveal News reports that Dahab also confessed to Egyptian investigators that he recruited 10 American Muslims to join al Qaeda while in the US between 1986 and 1998. He said he helped fellow EIJ members dodge electronic surveillance by routing calls through his apartment in California, calls that were used to organize terrorist attacks in Egypt and Pakistan.
The Justice Department in a statement said Dahab told Egyptian investigators that "Osama bin Laden was eager to recruit American citizens of Middle Eastern descent because their US passports could be used to facilitate international travel by al Qaeda terrorists, and that bin Laden personally congratulated him for this work," Courthouse News reports.
"The Justice Department is committed to protecting our nation's national security and will aggressively pursue denaturalization of known or suspected terrorists," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a Thursday statement on the case.
"This case demonstrates the Department's commitment to using all tools at its disposal, both criminally and civilly, to strategically enforce our nation's immigration laws and to disrupt international terrorism…. We will protect our national security and our borders, and when we identify individuals tied to foreign terrorist organizations who procured their U.S. citizenship by fraud, we will initiate denaturalization proceedings — whether you reside here or abroad — and ensure you are denied entry into the United States."
Dahab has not actually been inside the US in nearly 20 years. He was arrested in Egypt in 1998 trying to flee to the US. This proved a challenge to the government in serving him notice that his citizenship was going to be challenged. Howell allowed the Department of Justice to serve notice to Dahab over email and Facebook in 2015, a practice that is becoming increasingly common.
