Trump Administration Seeks To Deport FBI Informant [Op-Ed]

Look, we didn’t need any more evidence that President Donald Trump and his administration’s mass deportation agenda is about racism and xenophobia, not simply ensuring that all immigrants in the U.S. are documented. We already knew it wasn’t about ridding the U.S. of the “worst of the worst,” regarding “criminal illegal aliens.” 

Besides the fact that the overwhelming majority of those detained and deported are migrants who have no criminal records, we knew it was never about targeting the undocumented because federal agents are routinely engaging in racial profiling, arresting non-white migrants whether they’re documented or not, and arresting immigrants at their immigration hearings, or while they’re otherwise adhering to their court-ordered obligations.

Oh, and apparently, it doesn’t matter if an immigrant has acted in service of the U.S. — they can get snatched up and deported, too.

According to CBS News, earlier this month, 55-year-old Blerim Skoro, a Kosovo-born father of three, was arrested by ICE agents outside an immigration office in New Jersey where he was renewing his paperwork. CBS described Skoro as “a self-described CIA spy who infiltrated al Qaeda after 9/11 and won his permission to live in the U.S. by helping convict terrorists.” His attorneys, who have filed a motion in federal court to halt his deportation, said their client was promised residency after years of significant work as a “CIA agent.” What we do know is that FBI documents show Skoro listed as a confidential informant whose relationship with U.S. intelligence officials began when he was jailed for trafficking drugs in 2000.

From CBS:

While incarcerated at FCI Allenwood, a federal prison in Pennsylvania, between 2002 and 2006, Skoro says he gleaned intelligence for the FBI on terrorists including Faysal Galab of the Lackawanna Six, which federal agents described as America’s first homegrown terrorist sleeper cell; Randall “Ismail” Royer of the Virginia jihad network, convicted of organizing violence against U.S. troops overseas; and Hezbollah member Junuz Fuaz.

Heavily redacted FBI records from 2004 obtained by CBS News list Skoro as an informant in an investigation targeting Osama bin Laden, at times providing “actionable” and “reliable” information including details of a “Syrian training camp.”

Skoro believed he would receive a reduced sentence for his work, but was instead deported to Kosovo in 2007 and claims he was told by the CIA to infiltrate al Qaeda from the Balkans — only returning to the U.S. in 2014, he said in a previous legal declaration for his immigration case.

Skoro claims he was undercover in the terrorist group from 2007 to 2009 for the CIA, traveling to an ISIS camp in Syria and working in Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt as well as his home country.

Documents show Skoro was directly involved in the arrest of Betim Kaziu of Brooklyn, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison after attempting to buy weapons for al Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group. Kaziu was said to be trying to buy weapons he planned to use to target U.S. troops stationed abroad. Skoro wrote in a December 2020 declaration that he secretly called his CIA handler to give up Kaziu’s location, which happened to be his own apartment in Kosovo.

Skoro testified to being part of several other operations as well; operations that involved shipments of uranium being intercepted, and cases being made through his work as an informant for the CIA, FBI and New York Police Department. A habeas corpus petition filed in federal court after he was arrested this month says he “worked for the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Drug Enforcement Agency over the course of nearly a decade,” and claims he performed “devoted and heroic work as a United States law enforcement agent.”

For the last decade or so, Skoro has lived a “completely law-abiding, productive life with his family after a harrowing experience that he performed for the United States with great courage and skill,” his previous defense attorney, Joshua Dratel, told CBS News. 

Skoro has reportedly been working as a cab driver in Staten Island. His wife and children are U.S. citizens, and he was granted a deferral of removal in 2022 due to the risk of his capture and torture by terrorists if he were deported.

So, why is the administration looking to deport him now? Why did ICE arrest him while he was going through the legal process to maintain his legal status? This man, who was reportedly involved in the investigation targeting bin Laden — who kept weapons out of the hands of terrorists from Trump’s new favorite country to rail against and spread racist propaganda regarding, Somalia. Why him?

Well, there seems to be a simple answer: he’s a brown Muslim foreigner, and that’s all there is to it.

“This is yet another case that concerns whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) can — without notice, reason, or process — arbitrarily arrest and indefinitely detain a noncitizen who has been granted Withholding of Removal under the Convention Against Torture,” Skoro’s amended habeas corpus petition, filed on Aug. 17, states. “The answer to this question is resoundingly no. This holding has been confirmed by opinions across the country.”

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kirsch ordered the Trump administration to respond to the petition by Thursday.

SEE ALSO:

DOJ Admits To Using ICE Memo To Justify Immigration Court Arrests

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Trump Administration Seeks To Deport FBI Informant Who Reportedly Helped Investigate Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden [Op-Ed] was originally published on newsone.com