Ever since it was revealed by Colorado police that the suspected Boulder shooter, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, is of Syrian origin, a lot of details have come out about him, including his disturbed past and mental state. However, a lot of doubts about his origin and his family's immigration from Syria to the United States too have been flooding the minds of many.
One big question that has been doing the rounds on social media over the past couple of days is if Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa came to the United States through Obama-era asylum program. Since then several social media users have been trying to ascertain about Alissa's origin and if he really came from an Obama-era asylum program.
Varied Questions
Alissa was arrested on March 22 on suspect of shooting and killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket. The next day police revealed that he is of Syrian origin alongside other revelations that he may have been suffering from mental illness and was also bullied in high school.
However, his Syrian origin raised several questions, most importantly if it was a terror attack and if Alissa had ISIS links. Although both claims were immediately dismissed after it was revealed that his family had long shifted to the United States, it gave rise to a new questions. The latest claims that are being made on social media is that Alissa came to the U.S. as a Syrian refugee through asylum programs under former President Barack Obama.
The claim started from one social media user who tweeted that the asylum policies enacted by the administration of former Obama was responsible for allowing entry to people like Alissa in the United States. "It's now being reported that Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was a Syrian refugee who arrived via Obama-era asylum programs. Remember that Biden lifted Trump's travel ban on terror-prone countries, including Syria, his first day in office," read the tweet
What's the Truth?
Although Alissa's Syrian Origin was established social media users are still clueless if he originally came from an Obama-era asylum program. Facts and reports show the shooter was born in Syria in 1999, and his family emigrated from the city of Raqqa in Syria to the United States in 2002, according to The Washington Post and CNN.
That makes a lot of things clear. Obama was elected president in 2008, and could not have implemented any asylum program in 2002. Alissa's family immigrated to the United States during the time of Republican President George W Bush and not Obama.
Obama had started the asylum program in 2011 after millions of refugees began leaving Syria in earnest during the onset of the civil war. However, Alissa's family had immigrated almost a decade earlier, which puts to rest all such claims.
