Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released two illegal Jordanian aliens who tried to breach Quantico after they posted bail.
Apparently, they received bail and release if “they agreed to certain conditions for their releases – that they show up for all upcoming immigration proceedings and stay away from Quantico or any other military installation, court records show.”
Authorities arrested Hasan Yousef Hamdan, 32, and Mohammad Khair Dabous, 28, on May 3 for trespassing after they tried to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico when they approached the gates in a box truck.
They could not produce credentials and needed a secondary inspection.
The driver then “hit the gas and tried to plow through onto the base despite halt orders.”
The men would have crashed through the gates “except that guards deployed vehicle denial barriers.”
We do not know why they tried to enter the base.
“When asked, the operator of the truck informed the military police officers they worked for a company subcontracted by Amazon and were making a delivery to the U.S. Post Office located in the Town of Quantico,” said Capt. Michael Curtis, a spokesman for the base.
The authorities handed the men to ICE due to their immigration statuses.
Hamden crossed the border in San Diego in April. They were released due to lack of detention space. Dabous overstayed his student visa.
The Center for Immigration Studies wrote about the lengths the government went to keep the story secret.
For reasons not clear, DOJ attorneys – unusually, for such cases – did not file their charges in court for many weeks after the incident became news, not until July 9, in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. That’s more than two months after the arrests, when media interest had waned.Because the government refused to release names of the arrested people on supposed privacy grounds and ostensible absence of any public interest, and also delayed filing court papers for more than two months, a systematic search in the Alexandria federal court building did not uncover the public court case records.On July 22, when both Jordanians showed up for an “initial appearance” before a magistrate judge, ordinarily held quickly to advise arrested people of their rights and to inform them of additional hearings to come, no independent observers were present.The Center only uncovered the court filings after another records search found them after the open July 22 hearing. The Center did not attend but did order and receive transcripts.The transcripts showed that both Jordanians appeared in the same courtroom for the same trespass charges, with an Arabic-speaking interpreter, and also that they’d been held in custody since their May 3 arrests.“I’d like to just point out for the Court’s awareness Mr. Hamdan and Mr. Dabous’s charges for which they’re appearing today stem from the same incident,” a prosecutor told the judge.But the transcripts also show that, more than 10 weeks after their arrests, federal prosecutors were amenable to support their releases on a promise that they would appear for future hearings.The judge set both men’s next hearing for 10 a.m. on September 17.
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