Nurun Nahar Rahman, the spouse of Bangladesh’s National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman, who maintains a Facebook profile by the name of ‘Roger Rahman’, is a registered member and voter of the American Democratic Party, investigations by Northeast News show.
The Rahmans, residents of 1, Quaker Ln, Greenwich, Connecticut, have lived in multiple addresses across the United States. Khalilur Rahman denied in a press conference in Dhaka on May 20, that he is neither a US passport holder nor a citizen of that country.
But online inquiries revealed that Nurun Nahar Rahman officially registered as a Democratic Party member and voter. A Google search result on May 20 showed that “Nurun Nahar Rahman (born 1958) is listed at 1, Quaker Ln Greenwich, CT 06831 and is affiliated with the Democratic Party. She is a female registered to vote in Connecticut”.
Deeper research showed that Nurun Nahar Rahman registration as a voter was on August 17, 2017. Her voter status is listed as “Active” and she belongs to a part of Greenwich which is in the 004 Congressional and 036 in the Senate districts.
Under US law, all citizens enjoy the right to vote but only when a person registers herself as a voter.
All naturalised citizens – being an immigrant to the US, Nurun Nahar Rahman certainly exercised the option to be a naturalised citizen – can register to vote any time after their naturalisation ceremony.
A person “should not” register to vote if she or he is not a US citizen. Non-citizens, including permanent legal residents, cannot vote in federal, state, and most local elections. In fact, registering to vote before person become a citizen can “affect your citizenship”.
Besides, spouses of US citizens are eligible to become citizens themselves through a process involving a green card and, eventually, naturalisation. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says that the “spouse of a US citizen who resides in the United States may be eligible for naturalization on the basis of his or her marriage”.
The USCIS has laid down that the “spouse must have continuously resided in the United States after becoming a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for at least 3 years immediately preceding the date of filing the naturalization application and must have lived in marital union with his or her citizen spouse for at least those 3 years”.
Khalilur Rahman has denied that he is a US passport holder – and therefore not a citizen – but he did not state that he is not a permanent resident even as USCIS lays down that the “Spouse of a US citizen residing in the United States may also naturalize under the general naturalization provisions for applicants who have been LPRs for at least 5 years”.
There are at least three addresses – in Greenwich, CT, Scarsdale, NY and Yonkers, NY – that the extended Rahman family is linked with. Besides Khalilur and Nurun Nahar Rahman, the others who are associated with these three addresses are Celine Rahman (also known as Celine Rahman-DeMatteo), Farhat T Rahman, Lamiya Naureen Rahman and Sarah Rahman.
At least one of Khalilur and Nurun Nahar Rahman’s daughters, Lamiya Naureen Rahman, is married to an American citizen.
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Meanwhile, the BNP today strongly condemned Khalilur Rahman’s remarks involving the party’s Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman and demanded his immediate removal from office (of NSA).
“Our statement is clear that there is no scope for experimentation with the state. Dr Khalil must be immediately removed from the post of National Security Adviser and complete information about his status at home and abroad must be disclosed to the people of the country,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said.
