Homeland Security wants to deport Christian ‘Son of Hamas’
When Mosab Hassan Yousef converted to Christianity he literally turned his back on his homeland, friends and family–including his father, one of the founders of Hamas.
Youssef provided intelligence to Israel’s Shin Bet security service for more than a decade, working as a double agent and attending terrorist meetings withhis father, then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and other Hamas leaders, according to Japan Today.
The work he did prevented dozens of Hamas attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, and saved hundreds of lives.
Youssef also helped put several senior Palestinian operatives behind bars, according to Japan Today.
Because of his pedigree, Yousef was considered to be one of Shin Bet’s most valuable assets, and was dubbed “The Green Prince.” Yousef had converted to Christianity and come to despise Hamas. He acted out of ideological conviction, according to Japan Today.
His father however claims that Yousef was bribed by the Israeli when he was 17 years old. Yousef, now 32, was jailed by the Israeli in 1996 and released in 1997, according to Japan Today.
His life story, conversion and work with Shin Bet came out in his bestseller, “Son of Hamas” which was published in the United States in February of this year, according to Japan Today.
The book made him a celebrity. Despite this, the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport him, according to the Christian Post.
On January 2, 2007 Yousef entered the United States on a tourist visa. Seven months later he went to the DHS to seek political asylum. The DHS asked for evidence of everything that he claimed, and he gave them a draft of his book, which was only released this year.
Yousef said, “Surely this would make everything perfectly clear. They would discover I was an intelligence agent, not a terrorist. That I tracked down terrorists and put them in prison. That I was an asset, not a threat,” CWN reported.
Instead, on February 23, 2009 the DHS said that he was barred from asylum because there were reasonable grounds for believing he was a “danger to the security of the United States” and “engaged in terrorist activity.” The DHS senior attorney Kerri Calcador pointed to passages in his book as evidence, CWN said.
Yousef’s hearing is slated for June 30 when he will stand before immigration judge Rico J. Bartolomei at the US Department of Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego, according to the Christian Post.
Presently he resides in San Diego, where he works as a security guard at a grocery store and attends a Baptist church that knows him by his English name, Joseph, according to the Christian Post.
He is encouraging those in the San Diego area to attend the 8 a.m. hearing and “see for yourself Homeland Security in action.” He is also urging supporters to write letters to the DHS and to attorney Calcador on his behalf, the Christian Post said.
At the same time Yousef said, “I believe that God is using this situation to expose the weaknesses of Homeland Security and to put pressure on it to make changes that can save lives and preserve freedom,” according to the Christian Post.