The Justice Department has quietly dismissed charges against two Jordanian immigrants who were arrested after encroaching on a Marine base earlier this year, leaving a host of questions about the incident.
In court documents, the U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia said squelching the cases was in the interest of “the ends of justice” — boilerplate language that sheds little light on what happened.
The two men, Hamdan Yousef Hasan and Mohammed Khair Hassan Dabous, were stopped by sentries as they tried to drive onto Marine Corps Base Quantico in Prince William County in May.
They claimed to be making a delivery run and were asked to wait while their identities were checked, but Mr. Dabous, the driver, continued to move the box truck forward, military authorities said. The sentries raised the vehicle barriers and arrested the men.
Immigration authorities initially told base officials that Mr. Hasan was on the terror watchlist, according to the Serious Incident Report filed after the incursion. However, prosecutors said in court documents filed in September that neither man is actually on a watchlist, and neither the FBI nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has national security concerns or other derogatory information.
In court filings, lawyers for the men blamed the incident on a language barrier, saying Mr. Dabous was making legitimate deliveries in Quantico but didn’t understand the sentry’s directions about stopping.
Prosecutors waited more than two months before filing the charges in July, but by September, they seemed to have come to believe that the incident was a misunderstanding. Still, they waited one more month, until Oct. 3, before asking a judge to dismiss the charges. The court complied.
“This whole case is more than curious,” said Todd Bensman, who tracks connections between immigration and terrorism for the Center for Immigration Studies. “The government had many, many opportunities to dispel the notion that there was something more nefarious about this than met the eye. And they took a pass every time.”
Even Congress has had trouble getting its questions answered.
After the initial arrest, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green asked for the details about what occurred. He told The Washington Times the administration has been “delinquent” in getting him those answers.
“We are aware that one of these men entered through the Southwest border, claimed asylum, and was released into the interior just a month prior to the incident at Quantico,” Mr. Green said. “The circumstances surrounding this event remain concerning, and I urge the Biden-Harris administration to respond without further delay to Congress and the American people.”
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the dismissal of charges.
So did the lawyer for Mr. Hamdan. The lawyer for Mr. Dabous didn’t respond to an inquiry.
The arrests were first reported by Potomac Local News, which said the incident prompted an email to Quantico personnel urging them to be on high alert.
Documents detailing the arrest, which were obtained and released by Judicial Watch, indicated Mr. Hamdan snuck across the U.S.-Mexico border in April and was processed and released by Homeland Security.
The documents did not detail Mr. Dabous’ immigration history.
He provided a Virginia driver’s license at the time of his arrest. Mr. Hamdan had only a Jordanian passport. Amazon packages were found in the vehicle.
Mr. Dabous was the driver. It’s not clear why Mr. Hamdan was in the vehicle with him for the delivery run.
The incident report said that during the Marines’ checks, they heard from an ICE officer “telephonically confirming … that Hamdan was on a terror watch list.”
ICE took custody of the men, but they were ordered released on an immigration bond. The Times has sought information from ICE on their current status.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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