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Jason Pippin was an idealistic 18-year-old when he went to a conference in Dearborn, Michigan and heard a speech about how the Indian army was treating Muslims in the disputed Kashmir region.

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Believing it was his religious duty to help, the Muslim convert made his way to a camp in Pakistan run by Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), an armed Islamist group that staged cross-border attacks against Indian forces.

Since then, the Toronto resident has disavowed extremism. He testified as a prosecution witness at a terrorism trial and has helped de-radicalize two former members of the terror group that plotted to bomb downtown Toronto.

But his militant youth has now come back to haunt him: he was recently ordered deported from Canada to the United States on the grounds he was a former LeT member and had engaged in subversion by force of the Indian government.

“In 1996, at the age of 18, Mr. Pippin went to Pakistan to engage in jihad,” the Immigration and Refugee Board wrote in its ruling. “He wanted to protect Muslims who were being victimized by Indian authorities. This idealistic goal, however, required him to potentially kill Indian soldiers.”