Questions raised on US citizenship naturalisation process after Times Square Bomb Scare

New York, May 5 (ANI): The alarming frequency of naturalised US citizens turning against their new home country has led to reservations about the process by which foreigners are granted American citizenship.

The case of the latest turncoat Faisal Shahzad not only points to the several hurdle that an applicant must overcome to become a US citizen, but also to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services inability to catch everyone and everything with the slightest suspicion, Fox News reports.

"This is just one of those realities that we face," an official said.

While the citizenship process is rigorous and takes about four months, it does have loopholes.

The main citizenship form asks applicants for a five-year history of their travel outside the United States. It also asks a series of questions about the applicant's criminal and personal background, including whether they have ever been a member of a terror group, ever advocated for the overthrow of any government by force et al.

According to Fox News, these questions rely a lot on the individual's honesty -- terrorists applying for citizenship probably won't check the box declaring their outlaw affiliations. Similarly, if they've lied to get into the United States before, they are unlikely to admit it during the naturalization process.

However, this does not mean that all naturalised citizens are suspect, Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told Fox News that it would be going too far to re-examine naturalized U.S. citizens from select countries like Pakistan in light of this incident.

"I wouldn't want to single out a group," he adding that majority of the citizens of Pakistani descent were "totally loyal to our country (US)." (ANI)