Convicted Border-Crossing Terrorist Added to the CIS National Security Vetting Failures Database
By Todd Bensman on September 25, 2024
A Russian national who illegally crossed the U.S. Southwest border and got convicted of terrorism crimes in federal court is the latest addition to the Center for Immigration Studies’ National Security Vetting Failures database.
In March 2023, the Center established the nation’s first such database collection of some 50 analyzed cases to date. The goal was to draw “remedial attention” to ongoing national security vetting failures that quickly “drift from the public mind and interest of lawmakers, oversight committee members, media, and homeland security practitioners who would otherwise feel compelled to demand process reforms”, according to an explanatory Center paper titled “Learning from our Mistakes”.
Its latest addition is Mura Kurashev, a citizen of Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria republic, who in January 2024 pleaded guilty to providing money for guns and battle motorcycles to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, in Syria. Court records show the FBI was concerned about much more than the money Kurashev sent overseas after crossing the U.S. border; the bureau regarded him as personally dangerous, at risk of conducting an attack on the homeland had they not arrested him.
U.S. Department of Justice press releases and pronouncements about the Kurashev case never mentioned that this terrorist entered the United States by crossing the southern border.
https://cis.org/Bensman/Convicted-BorderCrossing-Terrorist-Added-CIS-National-Security-Vetting-Failures-Database
