Christian Son of Hamas Founder Faces Deportation from USA Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader.  In his recent autobiography Son of Hamas he tells the riveting tale of growing up with Hamas, working for the Israeli Security Agency Shin Bet, and his journey to faith in Jesus Christ.  At the end of the book he recounts his successful demand to leave Shin Bet and be allowed to start over in the United States.

In 2007 Yousef applied for political asylum in the US and was subsequently turned down in 2009.  He faces a hearing today that could result in his deportation from the United States.  Because of his work with Shin Bet that helped foil terrorist suicide bombings, saving Israeli, Palestinian and US lives, he faces certain death if the Department of Homeland Security decides to deport him.

Yousef’s lawyer, Steven Seick, said that the US Department of Homeland Security has consulted Yousef of Hamas, but still considers him a terrorist threat.  He said it is clear what will happen if Yousef is deported.  “Oh, he will be killed. There is a fatwah issued against him.

22 members of Congress have signed a letter to the US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging amnesty for Yousef. 

On his Facebook page, Yousef recounted what has recently happened in his relationship to the Department of Homeland Security.   He says “Recently, I received a document in which Homeland Security senior attorney Kerri Calcador claimed that, ‘In the book, the respondent discusses his extensive involvement with Hamas in great detail. For example, in one portion of the book, a member of Shin Bet shows the respondent a list of suspects implicated in a March 2001 suicide bombing and asks the respondent whether he knows the individuals. The respondent indicates that he does know five of the people on the list and states that he previously drove them to safe houses.’”

On page 5 of the document, Calcador concluded that, “At a bare minimum, evidence of the respondent’s transport of Hamas members to safe houses—discussed above in the Statement of the Case as but one example of the respondent’s involvement with Hamas—indicates that the respondent provided material support to a [Tier I] terrorist organization.’”

Yousef adds “Is she kidding? Either Homeland Security’s chief attorney has zero reading comprehension, or else she intentionally took the passage out of context. And I am not sure which is worse.  Even a child reading the book can see that, during that time, I was working as a secret agent for the Shin Bet (Israeli’s internal security service, comparable to our FBI)…”

The hearing will take place today before an immigration judge in San Diego, California, where Yousef has been living since arriving in the US in 2007.

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