String of attacks connected to naturalized citizens raises national security questions https://ift.tt/305MY7J

The United States is left vulnerable even by its own naturalized U.S. citizens from hostile foreign lands, proving a free country can be exposed to security risks by the very freedoms the Constitution endows, an expert warned on Fox News.

"That's partially because of legal reasons: They can't just monitor constitutionally protected free speech and opinions after they become a naturalized citizen, indefinitely, just to keep tabs on them," Mauro Institute president Ryan Mauro told Fox News on Saturday.

"They legally can't do it, and they also don't have the resources to do it."

Just this month alone, the U.S. has experienced four attacks with ties to naturalized citizenship.

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"There's a bit of a jihad olympics going on, which is where you have the Sunni radicals like ISIS competing with the Shiite radicals of the Iranian regime because they need attention in order to survive and in order settle the argument of who has Allah's blessing so that they can trigger the apocalypse," Mauro said.

"That's what they both want to do," Mauro said.

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The process of citizenship revocation has been a hotly debated topic during the second Trump administration, and the spate of four terror attacks amid the latest Israel-U.S. war on Iran may increase scrutiny on the vetting process.

"A person is subject to revocation of naturalization if the person becomes a member of, or affiliated with, the Communist party, other totalitarian party, or terrorist organization within five years of his or her naturalization," the U.S. Grounds for Revocation of Naturalization reads.

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Mauro's institute is not constrained by federal law in vetting potential terrorist ideology of naturalized citizens like the Justice Department is, he noted.

"That's why I personally have set up a civilian intelligence team that does do that type of thing," Mauro said. "And why we've been so successful is because whereas the government has to be very careful not to launch investigations based off of just a mere suspicion or an unpopular opinion, civilians are free to comb through social media and just find people and report them."

U.S. freedoms even protect suspected terrorists, he added.

"If they do come across someone who is expressing support for a terrorist organization, it still gets tricky," he lamented. "You would think, oh, at that point you can revoke it and just get rid of the people because that would make sense, but the question is membership and affiliation.

"I mean, there'll be a lot of headaches just over those words. At what point does it go from, oh, I agree with them, versus actually being affiliated with them as like a unit?"

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department, the FBI and multiple agencies within the Department of Homeland Security for comment on this story. The State Department redirected us to the latter two federal departments.