The Pakistani national with links to Iran who was arrested for allegedly plotting a political assassination on American soil was admitted into the United States via immigration parole for the “significant public benefit,” multiple federal law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation told Fox News.
In April, Asif Merchant, 46, flew into Houston where he encountered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. The FBI sponsored his parole for “security interests,” the law enforcement sources said.
The FBI had eyes on Merchant before he arrived in the U.S. and needed him to physically enter the country so they could build a case and arrest him. If they arrested him at customs, they would not have been able to gather evidence and information about his plot, the sources said.
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Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of trying to kill a political figure in the United States. He was let into the U.S. via immigration parole, federal law enforcement sources told Fox News. (Justice Department)
Fox News was told the method is not uncommon.
Merchant was arrested on July 12 while trying to leave the country, federal prosecutors said.
Days after arriving in Houston, he flew to New York City and worked with a person he believed to be a hit man in a murder-for-hire plot, which he wanted to be carried out in August or September, the Justice Department said.
The hit man contacted the FBI and became a confidential source for the law enforcement agency.
Merchant was potentially targeting former President Trump. The plot has no ties to Trump being shot during a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Merchant told authorities he has a wife and children in Iran and a wife and children in Pakistan. Iran has not confirmed or denied being involved in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
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Merchant flew into Houston where he encountered U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. (Getty Images)
“The Justice Department has brought multiple cases against individuals working on behalf of the Iranian government to lethally target Americans in the United States,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday. “But as I said last week, we expect that these threats will continue and that these cases will not be the last.”
Security concerns related to Trump and his former advisers have been raised before about possible retaliation from Tehran for a 2020 airstrike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
An image taken of Asif Merchant, 46, during a meeting with a source. (DOJ)
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“We have not received any reports on this matter from the U.S. Government,” the Iranian Permanent Mission to the United Nations told Fox News Digital this week. “However, it is evident that the modus operandi in question contradicts the Iranian Government’s policy of legally prosecuting the murderer of General Soleimani.”