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  • 2021-03-24 (xsd:date)
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  • Was Suspected Boulder Shooter a Syrian Refugee Who Came to US via Obama-Era Asylum Program? (en)
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  • On March 22, 2021, a 21-year-old man allegedly opened fire at a crowded supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10 people. Rumors about Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the suspected shooter, circulated on the internet in the aftermath, including one claiming he was a Syrian refugee who arrived in the United States thanks to asylum policies enacted by the administration of former Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama. However, we learned that this was not the case. The alleged shooter was born in Syria, and his family emigrated from the city of Raqqa in Syria to the United States in 2002, according to The Washington Post and CNN. Obama was elected president in 2008, and could not have implemented any asylum policies in 2002, which was during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. Millions of refugees began leaving Syria in earnest during the onset of the civil war in 2011, around a decade after Alissa’s family emigrated. Although Alissa was indeed born in Syria, we don’t know yet the exact circumstances in which Alissa’s family emigrated in 2002. We do know that they did not do so through an Obama-era asylum policy. We thus rate this claim as Mostly False. (en)
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