Washington Examiner senior columnist Guy Benson argued the shooter at Old Dominion University should have lost his citizenship after he tried to join ISIS.
“What on Earth are we doing in this country?” Benson said on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom on Friday. “I feel like, yes, he became a citizen; what is the argument? I’m genuinely curious, what is the argument against denaturalizing someone who was welcomed into this country, then chose to go to try to join ISIS?”
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“Why was he still here?” Benson asked.
Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone who spent six years in the Virginia National Guard, pleaded guilty in 2017 for attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison and five years of supervised release. Jalloh was released in 2024.
Benson said Jalloh “forfeited his right” to his citizenship after he tried to join ISIS.
“If this person is guilty of trying to join ISIS, why don’t we put him in prison for as long as humanely possible and as soon as we know that prison sentence is expiring, we get him on the first plane out back to wherever he came from,” he said. “Whatever country that might be.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said the shooting at Old Dominion University is being investigated as an act of terrorism.
Benson said Jalloh’s citizenship should not have been an “open-ended right.”
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“That person should have absolutely forfeited his right to remain an American citizen,” he said. “This is not some open-ended right that he has forever, or at least it should not be.”
“I genuinely do not understand what is the argument against denaturalizing someone like that,” Benson added.
