The Tsarnaev Family: More And More Evidence Of Asylum Fraud
04/24/2013
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As more details come out, the fraudulent nature of the asylum application by Anzor Tsarnaev, pere to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaeva, becomes readily more apparent as information reaches the public sphere. Though the fraud was readily apparent during the application process as well, but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Asylum Office chose to ignore the obvious fraud.

ABC News April 21, 2013 by Kirit Ragia

Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects' Twisted Family History

The history of the two Boston bombing suspects' family is a twisted one, woven with the various conflicts that have afflicted their ethnic homeland...

The first hint at fraud follows immediately from the account:

The aunt said the parents would come back to Dagestan to visit from time to time, but the sons stayed in the United States...

Sitting at her kitchen table here, the suspects' aunt, Patemat Sulemanova, recounted from memory a complex family history involving a deportation by Soviet leader Josef Stalin, two Chechen wars, and a severe beating in the United States that ultimately brought the suspects' father back to this restive region in southern Russia.

Strange behavior for someone fleeing political persecution to return repeatedly to where he was the victim of persecution and then returns permanently. So fearful of his life, but not fearful enough to return.

But back to the transnational history of the Tsarnaev family:

The father's side of the family is ethnic Chechen, but they were among the many Chechen families who were expelled from the region by Stalin in February 1944 when he considered Chechens to be disloyal during World War II. They resettled in Kyrgyzstan, which then was part of the Soviet Union. It was there that the suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, was born and raised.
He served his mandatory military term in the early 1980s in Novosibirsk, where he met his wife, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva. Her family was from Dagestan but she was in Novosibirsk to visit a relative.
The two married and eventually returned to live in Kyrgyzstan. They had four children, two girls and two boys, the two suspects. The elder son Tamerlan was born in the region of Kalmykia and the younger son Dzhokhar was born in Kyrgyzstan.

What we learn from this is that Tsarnaev pere was both a Kirghiz citizen and Russian citizen by birth. Essentially he could live in two different nations as he willed. And Dzhokhar was a Kirghiz by birth as well, after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is apparent that he also held passports from both Russia and Kyrgyzstan, an independent country, though Russian extends Russian citizenship to those born before the fall and those who are descendants of such.

In any event, any persecution problems in Russia could have been alleviated by moving to Kyrgyzstan.

But things get more complicated, as the Tsarnaev family settle in a constituent republic of the Russian Federation, Chechnya, that clearly made them Russian citizens as well. Note that Tamerlan was born in a constituent republic of Russia, Kalmykia, and was consequently Russian by birth.

The young couple decided to leave Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and attempted to settle in Chechnya, but bloody wars there in the 1990s forced them to quickly return to Kyrgyzstan.
By 2001, they moved to Dagestan, where the mother still had family, when the boys were 14 and 7 years old. They only lived there for about six months before obtaining refugee status and resettling in the United States.

So, six months in another constituent republic of Russia, Dagestan. But they first return to Kyrgyzstan. Clearly they had a legal right to be there, probably based on dual citizenship or rights to reside based on the former status of Kyrgyzstan as part of the Soviet Union.

So, the question is, what was the basis of Tsarnaev pere's asylum claim? Other reports quoted him as saying that the Russians were after him. Curious, as by that time the worst in Chechnya were over, but in any event he was a secular Muslim living in Kyrgyzstan, then Dagestan. Not being a bearded one that the Russians were fighting in another constituent republic, why would the Russians single out an obscure non-threat? Especially if the persecution he suffered was so minuscule that he returned repeatedly after moving to America.

We get a clue here:

NYT April 20, 2013 by Eric Schmitt, Michael S. Schmidt And Ellen Barry

Bombing Inquiry Turns to Motive and Russian Trip

Anzor Tsarnaev and his younger son first came to the United States legally in April 2002 on 90-day tourist visas, federal law enforcement officials said. Once in this country, the father applied for political asylum, claiming he feared deadly persecution based on his ties to Chechnya. Dzhokhar, who was 8, applied for asylum under his father’s petition, the officials said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to the United States later, and applied for American citizenship on Sept. 5 last year, federal law enforcement officials said.

So, he was so persecuted he entered the United States as a tourist, then, after admission, then went down to the USCIS Asylum Office to make a claim there. Before leaving though, he would have had to go to the Russian government's passport office to get a passport, then go through the rather rigorous tourist visa application process at an American embassy or consulate in Russia. The closest is Moscow, the very heart of the state apparatus that Tsarnaev feared so much. This puts a lie to his persecution claim. Even more telling is that he would have had to prove to the American embassy that he had what is so interestingly described as "an unrelinquished residence abroad." In non-bureaucratese that means do you have the ties necessary to where you live, such as employment and family, ensuring that you will return from a temporary trip to the United States. So, Tsarnaev pere would have had to show he was living quite well where he was, in Dagestan. And he came with only one of four children and no wife. Clearly leaving them there they were in no danger, which tells one that he was really in no danger as well.

An Asylum Officer should have picked up on these issues and denied the application for asylum application. But this is quite telling on the credulity of the Asylum Officers and our asylum policy. USCIS unhappily for many dead Americans, accepts any accretion of lies presented by aliens and follows a policy of "Get to Yes" rather than a "Get to the Truth." A policy that has proven to be deadly to Americans. And certainly not worth the cost in blood and gold.

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