Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker took to social media on Friday to claim that the arrest of a Middle Eastern refugee with ties to Wisconsin shows Walker was right about opposing a Obama administration plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. On Twitter the Republican Walker tweeted “Do people still wonder why we raised legitimate concerns about ensuring safety of people coming into Wisconsin from Syria?” Walker added a link to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report detailing the arrest of Mohammed Al-Jayab. According to the newspaper, the 23-year-old Syrian lived in Milwaukee in 2013.
Al-Jayab is charged in federal court in California with lying to authorities about why he was on his way to Syria – after allegedly writing on social media that he’s been helping fight alongside terrorist groups in that country since 2004. According to a criminal complaint, Al-Jayab is a Palestinian born in Iraq, who emigrated from Syria to the United States as a refugee in October 2012. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance Friday in federal court in Sacramento at 2:00 PM.
Three Al-Jayab relatives were arrested in Milwaukee on Thursday, but the FBI said those arrests were not related to terrorism.
