Illegal Who Tried Bombing Capitol Protected Under Obama Amnesty

As the Moroccan who plotted a suicide bombing inside the U.S. Capitol appears in federal court today, much of the mainstream media coverage omits a crucial part of the story; this is the class of illegal immigrant the Obama Administration is sparing from deportation.  

That’s because, like millions of others, the would-be assassin didn’t have a criminal record and thus never posed a threat to the public, according to the feds. Like many of the illegal aliens protected by the Obama Administration the attempted bomber, 29-year-old Amine El Khalifi, came to the U.S. as a kid (“through no fault of his own” as the open borders movement says).  He could have easily qualified for discounted college tuition at a number of taxpayer-funded colleges and universities nationwide.

El Khalifi lived under the radar in Alexandria Virginia while he orchestrated attacking a number of targets, including military buildings, a Washington D.C. restaurant popular among military officials and a synagogue. Last week he planned to blow up the nation’s capitol as a suicide bomber in a martyrdom operation. El Khalifi concocted a detailed plot and believed he was working with al Qaeda. 

Incredibly, El Khalifi is the prototype of illegal immigrant protected by Obama’s backdoor amnesty plan. Officially launched in mid-November, the initiative halts the removal of illegal aliens with no criminal records. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reviews all deportation cases and operates a “training program” to assure that enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys don’t remove certain types of illegal immigrants.

The idea, according to the administration, is to deport only undocumented aliens who have been convicted of serious crimes or pose a national security risk. That means a large class of illegal immigrants are being granted de facto amnesty, which is technically illegal without the consent of Congress. So far thousands have been spared removal under the outrageous initiative. 

As if this weren’t bad enough, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records indicate that serious criminals are not being targeted for removal either. This in addition to a sharp drop in the number of overall deportations during a recent quarter analyzed by a nonprofit university group dedicated to researching the U.S. government. 

The nonpartisan New York-based data research center, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), provides detailed information about the operation of hundreds of government agencies. Immigration is one of many areas it researches. This week TRAC released ICE data that shows the number of deportation proceedings initiated by the government during a recent quarter fell 33% from the previous quarter. 

The records also reveal that serious criminals are not being targeted as ICE promised when it announced its top enforcement priority. Of the 24,073 individuals targeted for deportation during the period analyzed, 8,884 were charged with immigration violations while only 1,300—just 3.3%—were sought to be removed as “aggravated felons,” the records show.

This is downright scary. That’s why Judicial Watch has worked to obtain information on how this is all being carried out. Last spring JW sued DHS for records concerning “deferred action” or “parole” to suspend removal proceedings against a particular group of individuals. The lawsuit was filed because the agency has ignored a federal public records request that dates back to July 2010.