Thread: Suspicion of Illegal wanting Truckers license

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236337,00.html
Authorities Probe Foreign Student Seeking Commercial Truck-Driving HAZMAT License
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

By Liza Porteus

(for full story please go to link above)
NEW YORK — Mohammed Yusef Mullawala wanted a license to transport hazardous materials and to learn how to drive commercial tractor trailers. There was nothing unusual about that, until he told his teacher that he only wanted to learn how to drive forward, and he wanted to learn fast.

That was enough to raise a red flag with Darleen Crawford, president of the Nationwide Tractor Trailer Driving School in Smithfield, R.I., where Mullawala took driving classes.

Federal and state authorities are investigating why Mullawala was seeking a commercial trucking license after his behavior raised flags at the Rhode Island driving school. Crawford said he was also insistent on taking the test necessary to earn a license to transport hazardous materials.

Mullawala, a 28-year-old citizen of India who is of Pakistani descent, is now in federal custody in Massachusetts on immigration violation charges.

"We are still digging into his background, digging into where he lived in Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey," Major Steven O'Donnell with the Rhode Island State Police told FOXNews.com on Wednesday. "A lot of still doesn't make any sense, why he would be doing what he was doing."

Investigators learned that when Mullawala obtained his driver's license from the Rhode Island Registry of Motor Vehicles, he gave a false statement indicating he was a Rhode Island resident. ICE then determined he was a citizen of India and in the United States on an expired temporary student visa.

On Tuesday, Mullawala went to state police headquarters thinking he was responding to another matter. He was then apprehended and turned over to ICE.

He's being held in the federal Suffolk County detention center in Boston until his immigration hearing in Boston, which is expected to be sometime within the next few weeks. He will be charged with overstaying his visa and is facing possible deportation back to India.

It makes you wonder how many more are out there just like him.

A lot, I fear.

What if he had been a little smarter and a little smoother? No one would have been suspicious and heck, the taxpayers would have probably been billed for his education.

Send him to GITMO and forget about him.