The suspect charged with shooting a Jewish man multiple times on his way to a Chicago synagogue last week is a Mauritanian illegal immigrant who was released into the U.S. last year, Fox News has confirmed.
Four law enforcement sources say that Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, a Mauritanian national, was apprehended in Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector in March 2023 and was released into the U.S.
Police say he attacked the 39-year-old male victim on Saturday morning in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood. Police said that the suspect was identified less than 30 minutes after the shooting, at which point he allegedly shot at responders before police “returned fire, striking the offender.” The victim, who was wearing traditional Jewish clothing, survived the attack.
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Police investigate a shooting on Saturday, Oct. 26 in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago, Ill. (Fox32 Chicago)
Police said they recovered a weapon from the scene and that Abdallahi was “placed into custody, transported to an area hospital and subsequently charged accordingly.” Abdallahi is facing 14 felony counts, including six counts of attempted murder.
Mauritania is a majority Muslim country in northwest Africa. The Department of Homeland Security deems illegal immigrants from Mauritania as “special interest aliens” due to security concerns, and they are supposed to receive additional DHS vetting.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had initially told Fox News Digital that it had no interaction with him. Law enforcement sources say that there is detainer request on Abdallahi — a request that he is transferred to ICE custody in the event of his release — but that “sanctuary” policies in Cook County, Illinois, prohibit local authorities from cooperating with it.
Local Jewish leaders believe this was a targeted hate crime, but no hate crime charges have been filed as of now.
There has been a significant increase in Mauritanian arrivals, putting pressure on towns like Lockland, Ohio, where more than 3,000 migrants have arrived in the village of 3,500. A Washington Post analysis in June found that over 15,000 residents from Mauritania came to the U.S. last year, a 2,800% increase over 2022, when just 543 arrived.
This split shows Mauritanian immigrants at the border and the Lockland village administrator. (John Moore/Getty Images and Fox News Digital)
The incident taps into ongoing concerns about the potential for terrorists to come across the southern border, amid the massive numbers of migrants who have come across during the border crisis.
A House report in August found that of the more than 250 illegal immigrants on the terrorist watchlist who were encountered by Border Patrol at the southwest border between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, DHS released at least 99, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the U.S.
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The staff interim report also found that immigration judges granted bond to at least 27 migrants on the watchlist who entered illegally, and that Border Patrol has encountered tens of thousands of migrants from countries that could present national security risks — including 2,134 Afghan nationals, 33,347 Chinese nationals, 541 Iranian nationals, 520 Syrian nationals and 3,104 Uzbek nationals.
“That does not include the untold numbers of potential terrorists that evaded Border Patrol to enter the United States as part of nearly 2 million ‘gotaways’ since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration,” the report says.
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That threat from foreign nationals hit the headlines this month when authorities announced the arrest of an Afghan national, accused of plotting an Election Day terror plot, who had been paroled into the U.S. amid the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.