A Russian national who illegally crossed the U.S. Southwest border and got convicted of terrorism crimes in federal court is the latest addition to the Center for Immigration Studies’ National Security Vetting Failures database.
In March 2023, the Center established the nation’s first such database collection of some 50 analyzed cases to date. The goal was to draw “remedial attention” to ongoing national security vetting failures that quickly “drift from the public mind and interest of lawmakers, oversight committee members, media, and homeland security practitioners who would otherwise feel compelled to demand process reforms”, according to an explanatory Center paper titled “Learning from our Mistakes”.
Its latest addition is Mura Kurashev, a citizen of Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria republic, who in January 2024 pleaded guilty to providing money for guns and battle motorcycles to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, in Syria. Court records show the FBI was concerned about much more than the money Kurashev sent overseas after crossing the U.S. border; the bureau regarded him as personally dangerous, at risk of conducting an attack on the homeland had they not arrested him.
In January 2024 Kurashev pleaded guilty to providing money for guns and battle motorcycles to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham.
U.S. Department of Justice press releases and pronouncements about the Kurashev case never mentioned that this terrorist entered the United States by crossing the southern border.
But court records from his 2021-2024 prosecution in the Eastern District of California say Kurashev illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into California on December 19, 2018, with his wife and children. The family entered during a high surge of family units who had learned they could exploit a previously little-known 2015 legal loophole known as the “Flores Settlement”, which requires U.S. border authorities to release children (and thus their parents) on asylum claims within 21 days. At the time Kurashev entered with his wife and three young children, hundreds of thousands of family group members from around the world were overwhelming Border Patrol agents.
As early as February 2020, some 14 months after arriving and settling in California, Kurashev began sending money overseas through terrorist HTS couriers. The FBI arrested him in February 2021 following a months-long investigation that began when agents discovered his social media and encrypted phone app communications with a well-known HTS fundraiser and recruiter in Syria.
CIS analysis of the case strongly indicates that his crimes and prosecution could have been avoided at the border when Kurashev first crossed because his home region is well-known as a hotbed for violent Islamist extremism, but also that he was offering a troubling asylum claim narrative that would have quickly flagged him for detention and deeper vetting.
Kurashev claimed he had fled harassment by Russian counter-terrorism intelligence officers who continuously interrogated him about specific attacks and terrorist associations.
Hearing such a narrative at the border should have prompted Border Patrol agents to flag him for detention, rather than quick release, and also would have spurred inquiries through established “duty to warn” channels with Russian intelligence services on matters of Islamic terrorism. The resulting information exchange would likely have revealed Kurashev to be enthralled with violent extremist ideology at the time of his entry and perhaps in communications with HTS.
In turn, these revelations would not only have prevented Kurashev’s later terrorism crimes but also the threat he personally posed as an attack risk inside the United States.
Instead, it was the FBI that later discovered his extremism-motivated criminal terrorism activities in social media and later in encrypted phone chat applications with HTS operatives overseas.
The investigating FBI office assessed in court records that “had he not been arrested, he may have become an operational participant in terrorist activities.”
The FBI asserted that it discovered Kurashev was wiring money overseas in at least February 2020, about 14 months after his arrival in the United States. Over the next year, he sent $13,000 earned in California to HTS, which used the money for battle equipment, including an AK-47 rifle and at least one combat motorcycle.
HTS associates overseas sent Kurashev a photo of one motorcycle he purchased bearing his online nickname, “Abus Salim”, on the gas tank and reminding the audience that “donating for the purchase of a motorcycle was tantamount to participating in the frontlines of the war in Syria”.
Furthermore, the investigating FBI office assessed in court records that “had he not been arrested, he may have become an operational participant in terrorist activities. Kurashev’s behavior firmly places him on the continuum for mobilizing to violence.”
In January 2024, the border-crossing terrorist pleaded guilty to material support for terrorism charges. In April 2024, a judge issued a 12-year prison sentence.
The Kurashev case marks rare confirmation of a national security fear often expressed as the worst mass migration crisis in U.S. history unfolded at the Southwest border during the 2021-2024 Sacramento prosecution. The case is added to the database as a reminder of a border insecurity consequence.
But its inclusion in the database also should serve as a reminder that that men arriving with wives and children, especially from troubled Islamist regions, cannot be automatically be waved through vetting processes, even amid torrential human traffic.
Published originally under the title “Convicted Border-Crossing Terrorist Added to the CIS National Security Vetting Failures Database.”
