(Image source from: Risk Management)

The United States President Donald Trump's administration has filed a lawsuit seeking to revoke American citizenship of an Indian descent convicted of terrorism.

The 37-year-old Khaleel Ahmed was sentenced to eight years and four months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release in 2010.

"Civil denaturalization is one important tool in our anti-terrorism efforts.  We will continue to zealously seek out and prosecute individuals like Ahmed," Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio said after filing a lawsuit to denaturalize Ahmed in a federal court in the Northern District of Illinois on Tuesday.

Ahmed had obtained the U.S. citizenship in 2004. The civil denaturalization charge alleges that Ahmed concealed and affirmatively misrepresented his criminal conduct throughout his naturalization legal proceedings and that his application would have been denied had immigration authorities known about his provision of material support to terrorists.

"The United States will never be a safe haven for those seeking to support terrorists," Special Agent-in-charge James Gibbons said. "When individuals lie to obtain immigration benefits, the system is severely undermined and the security of our nation is put at risk."

In 2009, Ahmed pleaded guilty to charges of supplying material assistance to terrorists through his endeavors to travel overseas in order to murder or maim the U.S. military forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Between 2004 and 2007, Khaleel Ahmed and his cousin, Zubair Ahmed, made preparations to travel overseas and did, in fact, travel to Cairo with an aim of engaging in acts that would consequently end up in the murder or maiming of U.S. military forces, he conceded in the guilty plea.

Upon returning from Cairo, the cousins discussed, sought, and received instruction on the use of firearms, including sniper rifles, and in counter-surveillance techniques. They likewise gathered and distributed videos of attacks on the U.S. military forces abroad, manuals on military tactics and military manuals on weaponry. In 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio accepted the cousin's guilty pleas, and in 2010, sentenced Khaleel Ahmed to eight years

Born in India in 1980, Ahmed was a beneficiary of chain immigration. He arrived in the U.S. on August 16, 1998, as a lawful permanent resident, as a child of a brother or sister of a United States citizen. He became the U.S. citizen on March 31, 2004.

By Sowmya Sangam