The fact is that the scythe of national security struck a stone of US immigration policy. In it, human rights come first, while where these individuals come from and what their goals are – that’s a secondary concern. And now it has been a revelation to Americans that a small but, as practice has shown, very active North Caucasian diaspora has long existed in the States. Itogi found out through which door potential terrorists enter America.
Intelligence data
The Tsarnaev brothers, who staged a massacre in the center of Boston, gave US authorities and society a vivid lesson in geography. The elder of them, Tamerlan, recently found his final resting place in a Virginia cemetery. The younger, Dzhokhar, is being intensively treated by doctors so that he can stand trial, and later, apparently, before the executioner. Nevertheless, many questions remain, and perhaps the main one is: how did the brothers end up in the US at all?
Perhaps this time the conspiracy theorists are right, having unearthed a real sensation. But let's take things in order.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar have an uncle, Ruslan Tsarnaev, who adopted the surname Tsarni in America. It was he who first and most thoroughly commented on the attack itself and the details of the biography of its perpetrators – his nephews. Meanwhile, the details of his own biography are far more interesting. Ruslan Tsarnaev emigrated to America quite a long time ago, receiving refugee status. Overseas, he managed to marry a local woman. He divorced in 1999 after three or four years of marriage. A mundane matter, as they say, but there is one very notable circumstance. Uncle Tsarni was married to Samantha Fuller. Her father – that is, our hero's former father-in-law – Graham Fuller is a retired CIA and State Department officer, as well as a prominent expert on Islamic extremism. As a 'cloak-and-dagger knight,' he worked mainly in Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. He rose to the position of deputy director of the US National Intelligence Council.
True, today the distinguished intelligence officer claims that his daughter married Ruslan Tsarnaev only after he himself had left the CIA. And anyway, he says, even though the Fullers knew their new relatives quite well, it was long ago and there was no whiff of Islamism or terrorism back then.
Nevertheless, this fact causes great bewilderment among experts. Especially in combination with the fact that Russian intelligence in 2011 warned their American colleagues about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's suspicious trips to the North Caucasus and his possible ties to the militant underground. And how could they not then check all of the Tsarnaevs' family connections, especially given such a competent source of information as Graham Fuller? Some American experts hint, however, that the former high-ranking CIA officer became a kind of alibi for the Tsarnaevs. Perhaps he even vouched that everything was in order with this family.
In any case, this is a vivid example of how the American political asylum machine works. Getting refugee status in the US is not easy. Especially if you are from a troubled region. But once the coveted document is obtained, and especially if you have acquired an influential American relative, it is no problem to bring all your children and household members to America.
There are few of them, but...
There are literally a handful of refugees from Chechnya in America (a couple of hundred people), but the Tsarnaevs managed to hold a giant magnifying glass over this drop in the ocean. Most of them, note, live in the Boston area. And no wonder: a good, clean, almost European-style city.
At the same time, not far from Boston are Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and leading medical colleges. People from the North Caucasus greatly value the opportunity for their children to get a good education, for which they are willing to endure all the inconveniences of migrant status.
When the news about the ethnic background of the Boston terrorists went around the world, for American Chechens it was, of course, a gut punch. Of course, it's unpleasant when neighbors and colleagues begin to indiscriminately associate you with the 'bad guys.' And there is also the threat of retaliation looming. In 2001, right after the fall of the Twin Towers, despite the authorities' explanatory work, a series of attacks on Muslims was recorded in America. In the heat of the moment, the 'people's avengers' not only targeted Arabs, but also peaceful Sikhs in turbans, as I recall. The average American is just as weak in ethnography as in geography.
'They, American Chechens, are very nervous because they remember how they were subjected to discrimination in Russia,' says Elmut Rokovanski from a public organization helping Chechen refugees in the US. 'I have to calm them down, dispel their fears, convince them that Americans have no intention of discriminating against entire ethnic groups.'
The above opinion is the quintessence of the American approach to immigration policy. According to it, America must meekly accept all the 'insulted and injured' from their homeland. And to delve into details – that's not American. What does it matter that the Tsarnaevs have no connection to the modern history of Chechnya with its two wars? They also could not have suffered from Stalin's deportation due to their age. Unless genetic memory...
In reality, America pays very close attention to the nationality of both its citizens and immigrants. This is called ethnic profiling. It is practiced at all levels. From a policeman on the Turnpike, the busiest highway in New Jersey, who stops cars with black drivers more often than white ones, to consular workers receiving direct orders from superiors to strictly 'profile' visa applicants by nationality. But there are exceptions to every rule.
A quota for losers
As the well-known New York lawyer Marina Fuksman explained to Itogi, there are two ways for low-income migrants eager to settle under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. The first way is to get into the coveted refugee quota, which can be achieved while staying in the country of residence. The second is to apply for political asylum while already in the United States.
According to the Jamestown Foundation, the mother of the Boston terrorists, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, legally emigrated to the United States as a refugee and received green cards for herself and four children, including Tamerlan and Dzhokhar. The latter has the status of a US citizen, having gone through all the stages of legal naturalization. Let us repeat: it is possible that this blessing was facilitated by Ruslan Tsarni, who settled in America earlier, with his amazing family connections. He is the one who now calls his younger relatives losers, but previously got along with them wonderfully. As for the brothers' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, he came to the US on a tourist visa in 2002 and also filed a petition for asylum. But now, apparently, it is not meant to be.
The Tsarnaevs made full use of purely legal methods of Americanization, combining both options – refugee and asylum. A characteristic detail: the mother became the main petitioner. It is known that preference in naturalization is given to women. They make up about 70% of those granted political refugee status in the United States.
Now these glaring holes in the American security fence are visible to everyone. For example, political asylum in the United States is granted even if a person arrived on a tourist visa and illegally remained in the States after its expiration. If he states that he fears returning to his homeland for some reason, there is a chance his status will be legalized. And if not, it's also not a problem. There are millions of illegal immigrants in the US, and they just live.
However, obtaining refugee status for an ethnic Chechen is extremely rare. Even for the former 'Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ichkeria' Ilyas Akhmadov, an associate of Aslan Maskhadov, this process turned out to be thorny, taking more than four years. Only in 2004 did the Boston immigration court decide to grant Akhmadov political asylum. But it did grant it! And we are talking about one of the leaders of a terrorist entity, which the self-proclaimed Ichkeria undoubtedly was.
Typically, the process of obtaining refugee status takes from three to five years. The fee for a lawyer handling the case ranges from five to seven thousand dollars. If the immigration court decides against the petitioner, he is deported. In most cases, this decision can be appealed, paying another large sum to the lawyer, but the decision of the appellate instance is usually not subject to further appeal. Then there is only one way out – going underground.
Disappearing in the 'middle' West is also easy due to bureaucratic confusion, the absence of such a concept as residence registration, and even language nuances. In official American English, 'Caucasians' are representatives of the white race. There have been funny cases when a Russian emigrant, filling out another form and ignoring the 'Caucasian' field, irritably wrote 'white'.
People from the North Caucasus have been 'profiled' for a long time, long before the Boston bombings. That is why there are so few of them in America. As Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation, explains, America is in principle very reluctant to accept migrants from the troubled southern regions of Russia. And this despite the fact that among Russians seeking political asylum abroad, more than half are Chechens. Immigration from Chechnya is also greatly hampered by the fact that the list of terrorist organizations compiled in the United States includes several North Caucasian groups, such as the 'Islamic Special Purpose Regiment', the 'Riyad us-Saliheyn Battalion', and the 'International Islamic Brigade'.
The material factor is also important. Not everyone can afford a plane ticket to America. Europe is much closer and more accessible. According to data from 2009, there are about 130,000 Chechens in the Old World countries, and now surely even more. Contrary to a common misconception, Russia has long left the list of priority recipients of American refugee quotas. Despite all the State Department's criticism of the human rights situation in our country, Washington apparently does not consider Russia as one of those regions of the world where a large number of citizens are under real threat. Suffice it to say that in 2012 only 197 migrants from Russia received political asylum in the United States. Even though the US accepts about 50-80 thousand refugees per year. According to data for 2009-2011 provided by the State Department, America sheltered the most refugees from Burma (about 17 thousand), Bhutan (15 thousand) and Iraq (about 9.5 thousand).
Nevertheless, as already mentioned, it's not about numbers. A couple of people charged with the appropriate ideology can carry out a bloody terrorist attack. It is not surprising that before the smoke had cleared at the tragic finish of the Boston Marathon, demands were heard in the Capitol to tighten immigration laws, especially towards the North Caucasus. Although how much tighter can they get? In a telegram to all US embassies and consulates in the early 2000s, it was spelled out in great detail how, to whom, and on what grounds not to issue entry visas. In the chapter 'Russia' in the 'unofficial travel' section, there are two subsections – general and... 'for ethnic Chechens'.
Much more effective than new visa barriers, which will inevitably affect the most ordinary and law-abiding Russians, would be closer cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries. And indeed, a more trusting level of political dialogue between Moscow and Washington. This is exactly what was discussed at recent congressional hearings. For example, the chairman of the subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and emerging threats, Dana Rohrabacher, stated that Al-Qaeda has focused on recruiting ethnic Chechens to carry out terrorist attacks in Western countries. And he proposed putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and some other wealthy Muslim countries to stop the financial support of militants in the North Caucasus. Washington can apply pressure, as there is no shortage of evidence. The question is: will they want to?
Andrei SMIRNOV,
Oleg SULKIN (New York),
«Itogi».