The Old Dominion University shooting never should have occurred. The DEPORT Act would ensure it never happens again.
In 2015, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a naturalized American citizen born in Sierra Leone, traveled to Africa and met with ISIS in Nigeria. He began communicating with a terrorist online who was an FBI informant. Jalloh was arrested and convicted for providing material support to ISIS and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
Jalloh should have been denaturalized and deported after his conviction. However, as a naturalized citizen, he remained in the country.
In 2024, he was released from prison early. On March 12 of this year, he entered a classroom at Old Dominion University and opened fire, killing Lieutenant Colonel Brandon Shah, a retired Army officer.
Shah was from Staunton, Virginia. He enlisted in the army in 2003 and flew an Apache helicopter over Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe. He survived 600 hours of combat in the Middle East only to be gunned down by a terrorist as he taught a class here in the American homeland.
This attack should never have happened. When a foreign-born terrorist is convicted of conspiring against our homeland, no American should ever have to worry that he will attack again.
The DEPORT Act makes it clear that any naturalized citizen who commits an act of terrorism, plots to commit an attack, joins a terrorist organization, or otherwise aids and abets terrorists is denaturalized and deported. In other words, Jalloh’s conviction for supporting terrorists would have been his last act on American soil.
Naturalization is intended to allow immigrants to pledge total allegiance to the United States. Terrorism is the antithesis of that pledge. Any naturalized citizen found guilty of terrorism-related charges was never loyal to our country and should be removed from our homeland immediately.
Under current law, joining a terrorist organization after naturalization is treated as prima facie evidence of fraud, but only if it occurs within five years of becoming a citizen. The DEPORT Act extends this window to 10 years. It also creates a new pathway for denaturalizing lone-wolf terrorists — those inspired by online propaganda and foreign extremist ideology who act without formally joining a designated terrorist organization.
Critically, the bill directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to revise citizenship applications to include an attestation requirement that will require every future applicant to swear under oath they have no intent to commit terrorism against the United States. If this had been in place when Jalloh was naturalized, he would have been deported upon his conviction.
This legislation is especially urgent given that more than 50 million people living in the United States were born outside the country — representing almost 15% of the population. Tens of thousands of these immigrants hail from countries with active terrorist networks. Many were welcomed to America with little to no vetting under recent administrations.
Recent attacks include Ndiaga Diagne, a naturalized citizen from Senegal who attacked a beer garden in Austin, Texas on March 1, wearing a “Property of Allah” shirt and killing two people while injuring 14 others. Similarly, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Lebanese-born naturalized citizen, rammed his pickup truck into Temple Israel in Michigan last month.
