A man who came to the U.S. as an Iraqi refugee was arrested in Sacramento on Thursday on suspicion of lying about fighting alongside terrorist organizations in Syria, federal authorities said.
On the same day, federal authorities in Houston announced that an Iraqi refugee in Texas, who had been communicating online with the man in California, was charged with attempting to provide support to the militant group Islamic State.
The allegations against two men residing in the U.S. with links to foreign terrorist groups comes as the nation reels from the Dec. 2 shooting in San Bernardino, which left 14 dead. That is considered the deadliest terrorist act on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
And the arrests of two refugees from Iraq, part of a wave of about 103,000 Iraqi refugees admitted from 2006 to 2014, is likely to add fuel to the debate over whether the U.S. should welcome refugees from Syria, and if so, whether the screening process is adequate.
The man living in Sacramento, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, had reported in private messages on social media that he fought alongside various groups in Syria, including Ansar al-Islam, a Sunni terrorist group and an affiliate of Al Qaeda, according to a federal complaint filed Wednesday and unsealed Thursday.
