Phyllis Schlafly has been on a tear after the Boston Marathon bombings, using the tragedy to call for the reinstatement of the House Un-American Activities Committee and a hold on comprehensive immigration reform.
In a syndicated column today, the Eagle Forum founder seizes on a report that some of the bombing suspects’ family members – all legal immigrants – received occasional welfare and food stamp assistance. “Tamerlan [Tsarnaev] can be said to have financed his radicalization with welfare handouts from our taxpayers,” she charges. She is also shocked that Tamerlan received a court-appointed attorney when he was charged with domestic violence in 2009.
Later in the column, Schlafly demands to know what immigration officials did when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taking his citizenship oath “to assure that Dzhokhar was not using the Koran-authorized practice of taqiyya, i.e., tell a lie in order to advance Muslim objectives.” Officials should have been tipped off, she says, by the first name of his older brother, which is common in Central Asia.
Once admitted into the United States, the entire family cashed in on generous U.S. welfare benefits, cash and food stamps. Those receiving taxpayer handouts included the two criminal sons, both of their parents and, ultimately, Tamerlan’s wife and child.
Tamerlan can be said to have financed his radicalization with welfare handouts from our taxpayers. Those were the years when Tamerlan became a more devout Muslim, gave up drinking in order to devote himself to “God’s business” and sought out jihadist websites.
When accused of domestic violence against a girlfriend in 2009, he had the benefit of a taxpayer-funded attorney to get his case dismissed. Welfare was terminated only in 2012 when his wife’s salary pushed their income outside of eligibility limits.
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When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was naturalized as a citizen. He would have been required to swear that he renounces “all allegiance” to any previous country and that “I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.” What did our naturalization bureaucrats do to assure that Dzhokhar was not using the Koran-authorized practice of taqiyya, i.e., tell a lie in order to advance Muslim objectives?
Why didn’t our FBI recognize the signal that the older boy was named for one of the most brutal murderers in all history? The name Tamerlan is known throughout Asia as a 14th-century Muslim who called himself the “Sword of Islam” and murdered 17 million people, beheaded many and displayed their heads to showcase his brutality.
