By now you’ve probably heard about Kamran Shaikh, the Pakistani man who allegedly took videotapes of skyscrapers, a Texas dam, and various public transportation systems. The news reports note that Shaikh is being detained for immigration violations, but I’m not sure any major news outlet mentioned that Shaikh says he entered the U.S. illegally by way of the Mexican border. The information is in items #6 and #13 of the affadavit located on SmokingGun.com. (Hat tip: The Galvin Opinion.)

For more on suspected terrorists entering via the porous U.S.-Mexico border: 1 2 3.

Update: A reader points out that the affadavit reveals Shaikh was an absconder:

[He was] one of the 400,000 absconders running around with deportation orders that ICE has made a “priority” to locate. So this guy had a deportation order since 1998 and was living in the US freely and without inconvenience or interference. Yet he managed to live here since that time without being detected and even obtained a New York drivers license.

Also note how applying for political asylum after illegally entering allowed him to run free pending adjudication of his application–and then he was allowed to simply withdraw it after promising to depart on his own….

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