Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab — Facebook

Two Iraqi refugees, one in California, have been arrested on joint terrorism-related charges.

“From his pictures on Facebook, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab looks like any other millennial with a wardrobe of Nike sneakers, Ray-Ban sunglasses and flannel shirts. But federal officials say the 23-year-old was living a double life — one as a refugee starting a new life in America and another as a young man anxious to return to the Middle East to fight in the Syrian Civil War,” the Daily Mail reported. “The Iraqi-born Palestinian man was arrested Thursday in Sacramento, California on charges he was plotting to travel to Syria to join the al-Nusra Front terrorist organization.”

Under the radar

As the New York Times reported, Jayab’s alleged partner in the scheme, 24-year-old Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, “was arrested in Houston and charged with three counts of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, according to a statement from the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.”

“Prosecutors said that Mr. Jayab entered the United States from Syria as a refugee in October 2012, living in Arizona and Wisconsin before settling in Sacramento. Mr. Hardan, who lives in Houston, entered the United States as a refugee in 2009 and was granted legal permanent residence status in 2011, according to law enforcement.”

“Prosecutors allege Al Hardan was coordinating efforts with another Iraqi refugee living in California, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab,” the Associated Press reported. “The two men communicated through Facebook messenger from April 2013 to October 2014 and talked about getting weapons training and eventually sneaking into Syria to fight alongside the terrorist group,” according to prosecution witness Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Herman Wittliff.

In custody

While Al Hardan’s family has been evicted from their apartment, “Al-Jayab remains jailed in Sacramento, California,” the AP added. “Authorities say Al-Jayab fought twice in Syria, including with a group later affiliated with the Islamic State between November 2013 and January 2014.”

Hardan was denied bond by U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes. Based on details relayed by Wittliff, he ruled “there would be a serious risk that the Iraqi refugee would flee if released from federal custody,” reported Fox News. According to the channel, Wittliff “said that in addition to Al Hardan wanting to set off bombs at the two Houston malls, including the popular Galleria mall, the Iraqi man was also learning how to make electronic transmitters that could be used to detonate improvised explosive devices. Al Hardan wanted used cellphones — a collection of which were found in his apartment — to detonate the devices, Wittliff said.”

Fueling national fears

The arrests have fueled election-year concern, especially among Republicans, that U.S. screening processes have not been adequately tightened amid the rise of ISIS and the recent waves of Mideast migration it has caused. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a consistent critic of President Obama’s border and security policies, took the opportunity to press home the point. “I once again urge the president to halt the resettlement of these refugees in the United States until there is an effective vetting process that will ensure refugees do not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.

And Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, currently pushing a bill that would mandate additional procedures, tied Hardan and Jayab to the broader security situation in a statement. “While I commend the FBI for their hard work, these arrests heighten my concern that our refugee program is susceptible to exploitation by terrorists. The president has assured us that individuals from Iraq and Syria receive close scrutiny, but it is clearly not enough,” he concluded, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

“McCaul introduced the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act last year, which calls for Federal Bureau of Investigation background checks in addition to initial Homeland Security screenings for all ‘covered aliens,’ or refugees with ties to Iraq or Syria. The bill passed 289 to 137 in the House in November.”

In addition to his five deportations, Lopez-Sanchez had racked up seven felony convictions since 1991, according to the Washington Post. “San Francisco authorities released him from custody in April after drug charges against him were dropped, despite an urgent request from the Department of Homeland Security that he be deported a sixth time to his native Mexico,” the Post reported.

Laying blame squarely at the feet of the city, federal officials have helped return California to the center of the immigration debate roiling the U.S. amidst the early stages of a presidential election season.

Municipal crisis

Caught flat-footed, city officials have scrambled to respond to the ballooning criticism. Donald Trump, who has made immigration enforcement a divisive wedge issue defining his maverick run for the presidency, recently seized upon the shooting as evidence justifying his proposed crackdown. City officials emphasized that their actions were in accordance with municipal law, as the Los Angeles Times noted:

“San Francisco’s ordinance made Sanchez ineligible for a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold because he did not have ‘a violent felony conviction within the last seven years, or a probable cause for holding issued by a magistrate or judge on a current violent felony,’ said Freya Horne, an attorney for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. ‘Nothing in his background showed anything like that.'”

Lopez-Sanchez fell under the purview of a 2013 law adopted by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. “Since then,” added the Times, “dozens of cities and counties across the country have stopped complying with immigration “detainer” requests after a federal judge ruled that an Oregon county violated one woman’s 4th Amendment rights by holding her for immigration authorities without probable cause.”

Lopez-Sanchez has now been charged by city prosecutors in connection with Steinle’s killing, according to Fox News.

Election-year politics

Surprisingly, Lopez-Sanchez himself has weighed in on the immigration debate. Interviewed in jail by KGO-TV, he revealed that “he chose to return repeatedly to San Francisco […] solely because he felt protected from deportation,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Horserace watchers, the Chronicle noted, have speculated that the controversy could become a “Willie Horton moment” in the 2016 election cycle — a reference to then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush’s opportunity to score points against rival Michael Dukakis, who had supported a weekend furlough program as governor of Massachusetts that allowed a convict to committed a string of violent felonies.

But this time around, the field of contenders for the GOP nomination has split on immigration, with some candidates implying support for Trump’s stance and others remaining opposed.

Across California, some Republicans have quickly voiced their disgust with Democrats’ lenient attitude on immigration. “There has also been harsh criticism at the state level from conservatives such as Tea Party favorite and former GOP assemblyman and gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly, who is now a talk show host,” the Chronicle continued. “He called on state Democrats to take direct responsibility for immigration policies that he charged are ‘putting the public’s safety at risk.'”

Democrats, meanwhile, have not responded in kind. State Attorney General Kamala Harris, who rose from San Francisco district attorney to her party’s favorite to replace outgoing U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, ventured that “our policy should not be informed by our collective outrage about one man’s conduct,” as ABC News reported. “Many other San Francisco politicians stayed quiet as mourners held a late morning vigil at Pier 14 on the downtown waterfront[.]”

Out of a potential pool of more than 300 candidates, Department of Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano was unanimously nominated to fill in the shoes of retiring UC President Mark Yudof. The UC Board of Regents will vote Thursday on her appointment. If approved, Napolitano will be the 20th president of the UC system and first woman to lead in its 145-year history.

UC Regent Sherry Lansing chaired a 10-member special search committee, by which Napolitano was recommended in a unanimous vote. In a statement, Lancing called Napolitano “a distinguished and dedicated public servant who has earned trust at the highest, most critical levels of our country’s government. She has proven herself to be a dynamic, hard-working and transformative leader.”

California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice W. Harris issued a statement echoing similar sentiments of praise:

“The nomination of Secretary Napolitano to become the next president of the University of California is a truly inspired choice worthy of this great system of higher education. Her focus on education as governor of Arizona and the skills and leadership she has demonstrated as Homeland Security secretary make her uniquely qualified to lead the University of California.”

Even Gov. Jerry Brown said Napolitano had “strength of character and an outsider’s mind that will well serve the students and faculty” and that it would be “exciting to work with her.” Which is rather interesting, considering he criticized the trend of hiring out-of-state presidents in 2011, and wanted UC and CSU officials to specifically seek out Californians.

Napolitano’s lack of academic experience

Contrast that with the reaction of former state senator and education reformer Gloria Romero, who said she was “stunned” upon hearing the news. Romero told me the nomination was a “political placement” and “not wise for the UC system.” The University of California system, she said, is a “premiere institute of research scholarship and faculty.”

“I admire her for what she’s done,” Romero said of Napolitano. “She was a governor and did oversee the University of Arizona system, but this is the UC system.”

Romero questioned Napolitano’s credentials and said the UC president should be someone that would be qualified to oversee “the collaboration and development of curriculum, the training and appreciation for research, and equipping the next generation of scholars.”

She pointed to Charles Reed, the former chancellor of the California State University system, whose tenure, she said, was “always very contentious” because of his minimal ability to “understand or appreciate the role of faculty in the development of curriculum.”

When I asked former UC Regent Ward Connerly of the American Civil Liberties Institute if he thought Secretary Napolitano was qualified to oversee the UC system, he simply said, “Doubtful.”

“There is no evidence that she has any academic experience,” he said of Napolitano. “Faculty often insist on someone that has academic experience.”

Indeed, Napolitano’s credentials fall far short of current UC President Mark Yudof and those before him.

Yudof came to the UC system after being chancellor of the University of Texas system from 2002 to 2008. Before that, he was president of the four-campus University of Minnesota system during 1997-2008. He was also a faculty member and administrator at the University of Texas at Austin for 26 years and dean of its law school from 1984 to 1994, as well as the university’s executive vice president and provost from 1994 to 1997.

Robert C. Dynes, the UC president before Yudof, was a professor of physics at the UC Berkeley during his tenure from 2003 to 2008. He was also the chancellor for UC San Diego from 1996 to 2003, and had been a part of the UC system since 1990.

Former UC President Richard C. Atkinson served before Dynes from 1995 to 2003 and had been chancellor of UC San Diego for 15 years. He was also the former director of the National Science Foundation, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, former chair of the Association of American Universities, and a long-term member of the faculty at Stanford University.

These picks were all clear-cut academics. But the closest that Secretary Napolitano comes to these UC presidents is that she has a law degree. She has no research under her belt, no experience overseeing any academic systems, never taught a college class and isn’t even a native of California, even though proponents of Napolitano’s nomination say that, as governor of Arizona, she was focused “extensively on education.”

Playing politics with UC nomination

What we’re actually seeing, said Ward Connerly, is a “revolving door with academia and Democrat institutions.”

“If you go back and look at the Clinton era, for example,” he told me, “a number of academics were appointed in the second term of Clinton’s administration to prominent university positions.”

And it’s no secret the UC regents and faculty have been very supportive of Obama and his academic policies.

In fact, UC Regent Sherry Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures and head of the search for the incoming UC president, had donated $1,000 to Barack Obama as early as 2004. She’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democrat Party, its candidates and its PACs.

The nomination looks like a win-win for the Obama administration, as Napolitano, who has become entrenched in scandals on sexual discrimination, immigration enforcement, the Boston bombings and downplaying terrorism, steps down from her post in the Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, Politico notes, her resignation gives Obama “major leeway” to pick a new DHS secretary without needing any Republican support, if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid follows through with his threat to go ‘nuclear’ and change filibuster rules.

It makes you wonder, asked Gloria Romero, “What is she doing? Who called whom? Who negotiated what and how did they place her? With these scandals brewing, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Ward Connerly told me it was “hard to say if faculty would oppose” such a nomination, or if the academic senate would respect her at all. “UC needs someone adept at bringing outside financial support,” he said. “While we seem to have turned a corner on the economy, UC is not out of the woods yet.”

The special session to vote on Secretary Napolitano’s nomination occurs Thursday, July 18, at 1:45 pm.

(Katie Hillery contributed research to this article.)

Janet Napolitano is on her way to becoming Big Sis of the University of California. She just resigned as Big Sis of the Department of Homeland Security.

She got the Big Sis label from the Drudge Report for her Big Brother policies of controlling and spying on Americans, especially the intrusive “pat downs” at American airports.

Here’s what UC students might find when they return to school in a few weeks:

* Fences like those on the U.S. border with Mexico will be erected around every campus.

* To enter they campus, students will have to go through airport-style “porno-scanner” machines and suffer invasive “pat downs.”

* Irradiated students who get cancer will be referred to the Covered California, the state’s implementation of Obamacare.

* All students’ emails, phone calls, Skypes, tweets, Facebook entries, etc., will be completely copied and scanned for potential anti-government agitation. This will include all off-campus and private communications.

* Conservatives and libertarians will be harassed according to the 2009 edict she issued, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

* The IRS also will be notified, as happened last year nationally, of any conservative, libertarian or (left-wing) Occupy agitators, who then will be relentlessly audited, even if their only income was flipping burgers for a summer job at at McDonald’s.

* Even though the school has financial problems, all her official appearances will be accompanied by bagpipes and drums.

* “1984” is the new UC administrators’ instruction manual.