F.B.I. Interview Led Homeland Security to Hold Up Citizenship for One Brother

[boston bean]

Department of Homeland Security officials decided in recent months not to grant an application for American citizenship by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, after a routine background check revealed that he had been interviewed in 2011 by the F.B.I., federal officials said on Saturday.

Mr. Tsarnaev died early Friday after a shootout with the police, and officials said that at the time of his death, his application for citizenship was still under review and was being investigated by federal law enforcement officials.

It had been previously reported that Mr. Tsarnaev’s application might have been held up because of a domestic abuse episode. But the officials said that it was the record of the F.B.I. interview that threw up red flags and halted, at least temporarily, Mr. Tsarnaev’s citizenship application. Federal law enforcement officials reported on Friday that the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Tsarnaev in January 2011 at the request of the Russian government, which suspected that he had ties to Chechen terrorists.

The officials pointed to the decision to hold up that application as evidence that his encounter with the F.B.I. did not fall through the cracks in the vast criminal and national security databases that the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. review as a standard requirement for citizenship. The application, which Mr. Tsarnaev presented on Sept. 5, also prompted “additional investigation” of him this year by federal law enforcement agencies, according to the officials. They declined to say how far that examination had progressed or what it covered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/us/tamerlan-tsarnaevs-citizenship-held-up-by-homeland-security.html?_r=0

[Pachamama]

1. Maybe it was the denial of US citizenship that set Tamarlan off on this murderous bombing?

Who knows....but we still dont know the details of what was going on in his personal life with his girlfriend/wife who is American and a christian who converted to Islam for him, with whom he has a daughter but she was living at her parents and he takes off for 6 months to Russia? Something tells me there is a whole lot that was happening there (not the happy picture of domestic bliss) and that when he was denied citizenship, that set him off the deep end....

[JimDandy]

2. Color me skeptical.

Wonder what they gave to Tamerlan as the reason for the denial. Surely documentation exists or his family must know.

[avaistheone1]

3. Doesn't seem like the FBI went far enough in their investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

There appears to have been significant red flags, but just a routine investigation.