Iraqi Refugees Detained Pending a Hearing: Update

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- The two Iraqi refugee brothers charged with immigrant fraud were detained pending a Friday hearing after an initial federal court appearance Tuesday in Alexandria.

Yousif Al Mashhandani of Vienna, Va. and Adil Hasan and his wife Enas Ibrahim of Burke, Va. face 10 years in prison and eventual deportation. The charges came Tuesday after the three permanent Virginia residents applied to become naturalized citizens.

Ibrahim was released to care for her 5 and 6-year-old children, who are natural born U.S. citizens.

The charges center around the refugees failure to disclose on the citizenship application a connection to a relative who admitted to kidnapping a U.S. citizen. Hassan and Yousif Al Mashhandani are brothers of Majid Al Mashhadani, who admitted to kidnapping U.S. citizen Roy Hallums in 2004. Forces discovered Hallums and other hostages in an underground bunker during a 2005 raid.

During the citizenship application process in 2013, an FBI specialist matched Yousif's fingerprints to those found on the documents during the 2005 hostage rescue.

Hallums told the Associated Press Tuesday he was surprised the three refugees could enter the U.S. when the FBI had Yousif's fingerprint on file.

Hasan and Ibrahim eventually admitted to the FBI that they did not disclose the relationship in fear of jeopardizing their status as refugees.

In a phone interview with the AP Tuesday, Ibrahim said said they gave the FBI all of the information they had on Majid, including an address. On the consequences they face if prosecuted, she said, “I don’t want to go back to Iraq. It’s my nightmare.”

This case comes as President Trump has tried to impose a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries. The revised executive order does not include Iraq, although it does restrict refugees. Trump's newest version remains blocked after Maryland and Hawaii federal judges' rulings.

>> image via Patch file photo