The Justice Division moved Thursday to yank the US citizenship of a disgraced Pakistani-born Lengthy Island physician convicted of sexually exploiting an 11-year-old woman.
The denaturalization case in opposition to Hassan Sherjil Khan, who has been behind bars since 2016, was filed by US Lawyer Jay Clayton within the Southern District of New York, and it’s certainly one of greater than 300 proceedings the Trump administration has pushed as a part of a crackdown on felony international nationals that obtained citizenship.
“Naturalization and US citizenship is not going to defend sexual predators from the results of their horrific acts,” Assistant Lawyer Basic Brett Shumate stated in an announcement.
“For those who fail to reveal critical crimes whereas searching for naturalization, the federal government will uncover your lies and revoke your ill-gotten US citizenship.”
Khan, 38, utilized for US citizenship in August 2012 – simply 4 months after he traveled from New York to London to have intercourse with a 15-year-old woman “he had been sexually grooming from the time she was eleven,” in line with court docket paperwork.
Within the years main as much as the UK journey – throughout which Khan engaged in varied intercourse acts with the teenager on “a number of events over a number of days” – the discredited Mineola physician was absolutely conscious his sufferer was a minor and “frequently coerced and enticed her to ship him sexually specific photographs of herself and to interact in sexually specific conduct by way of stay video chats,” prosecutors stated.
Khan was arrested in September 2015, two years after he took the oath of allegiance to the US and obtained citizenship.
In 2016, he was sentenced to 17 years in jail after pleading responsible to coercion and enticement of a minor to interact in unlawful sexual exercise.
At his sentencing, Khan’s sufferer described how the grooming and abuse left her bedridden with despair, triggered hallucinations and anorexia, brought on her to self hurt, made her fall behind in college, and left her “a shadow of the person who I might have been.”
The denaturalization criticism in opposition to Khan alleges that he illegally obtained US citizenship as a result of he “willfully misrepresented and hid the felony conduct” he engaged in – however had not but been arrested for – throughout his naturalization proceedings.
Prosecutors additionally argued Khan lacked the “good ethical character” required for naturalization as a result of he had dedicated a criminal offense involving “ethical turpitude.”
A DOJ memo issued final June famous the division would “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings” in opposition to people convicted of participating in 10 classes of crimes, together with intercourse offenses.
The Trump administration has filed roughly 384 denaturalization instances, in line with the New York Occasions, an enormous enhance from prior administrations.
Between 1990 and 2018, the federal government introduced simply 305 denaturalization instances, Washington Submit reported.
“The Division of Justice is laser-focused on rooting out felony aliens defrauding the naturalization course of,” DOJ spokesman Matthew Tragesser advised The Submit.
“Beneath the management of President Trump and Appearing Lawyer Basic Todd Blanche, the Division is pursuing the very best quantity of denaturalization referrals in historical past.”
Tragesser stated the DOJ is “shifting at warp pace to make sure fraudsters are held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent.”
“Our filed referrals in a single 12 months have exceeded the overall throughout the complete 4 years of the Biden administration,” he added, “with many extra to come back.”
