One of the agents told Osman they had a deal for him. A “good deal,” Osman recalled: The FBI could help him with his green card application and even help some of his family immigrate to the United States.But something changed, he said, when she called and said, “I want to ask you where Osama Bin Laden is.”“That was when I got shocked,” he recalled. “I was really scared, and I was not feeling comfortable. She was giving me so much pressure. I think she was trying to scare me.” But he did not dare tell anyone in his community, lest someone think he was cooperating.Immigration records indicate that right around that time, and again in March and May of 2010, the Joint Terrorism Task Force — a partnership of law enforcement agencies led by the FBI — requested information about Osman’s immigration files from USCIS.In March 2011, Osman was informed that his claim to be a member of Somalia’s persecuted Tuni clan “may have” been false. He tried to fight the charge, but lost. First his refugee status was revoked. Then, six years after filing an application for a green card, Osman finally got an answer: No.An immigration lawyer did eventually get him in front of a judge, who ruled that the government had acted improperly. Osman’s refugee status was reinstated, and he even got a green card.But when, encouraged by those developments, he applied to become a full citizen, he ran into the very same kinds of delays. FBI agents don’t show up at his door anymore, but he worries that he might still find himself searching for a country to call home. “I believe I’m already an American,” Osman said one recent night, sitting in a hotel lobby.“I mean, I am an American!” he exclaimed, with his hands in the air. “This is my home. They might believe something else, but of course I am.”
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 