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A federal judge has reportedly ordered the deportation of a former Pennsylvania college student accused of lying about his contact with anti-American insurgents in Yemen.
Gaafar Mohammed Ebrahim al-Wazer, a Yemeni national and ex-student at Drexel University, was ordered Thursday to be deported to Oman by Judge Juan R. Sánchez in Philadelphia for lying to federal immigration officers in 2018 while trying to renew his legal immigration status, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Al-Wazer, 26, had been detained since November 2019 after he attempted to schedule a visit to the White House and withdrew his immigration renewal request while citing US involvement in the civil war in his native Yemen, the outlet reported.
FBI counterterrorism investigators had interviewed al-Wazer in May 2016 regarding his affiliation with members of the Houthi rebel movement, federal prosecutors said. He denied being aligned with the fighters — whose motto is “Allah is the greatest of all, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam” — and that he ever fired a weapon or took part in military training with the group.
But a search of his Facebook profile revealed al-Wazer photographed with automatic weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, federal prosecutors said.
Another image allegedly depicted al-Wazer in military garb with a rifle at a training camp in the Middle East.
“He hates all Americans, death to all Americans, especially Jews,” the caption read, court documents show.
In a 2019 letter withdrawing his immigration application, al-Wazer questioned how the United States would help him if it was not supporting peace in Yemen, according to the Inquirer.
“I am not in need to you,” al-Wazer wrote. “I have Allah with me.”
He declined to comment on those remarks in court Thursday as a judge approved a deal al-Wazer made with prosecutors for his deportation. The deal was finalized after FBI agents found no evidence that the Yemeni national posed an “operational” threat to national security, the Inquirer reported.
The agreement required al-Wazer solely to admit to lying to federal immigration officers in his 2018 application, according to the report.
“Al-Wazer is of course entitled to hold and lawfully express his political and religious opinions as freely as anyone else in this country, no matter how hateful or odious they may be,” Assistant US Attorney Nelson S.T. Thayer wrote. “However, [he] is not entitled to lie about those beliefs when asked about them by US immigration and counterterrorism officials.”
Al-Wazer renounced his immigration status in October 2019 and signed up for a White House tour weeks later, raising concerns with the Secret Service. He was arrested days later at his home in Altoona and had been detained since, the Inquirer reported.
Al-Wazer was expected to board a flight to Oman late Thursday. His attorney said he had been a model prisoner and spent the bulk of his time improving his English, according to the report.
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