Damning report reveals how many migrants on terror watch list were released under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
A new report finds that 99 illegal immigrants on the terrorism watch list have been released into the U.S. in the first three years of Joe Biden’s administration.
During that period, the border patrol encountered approximately 250 people, including those from places where terrorists are actively present, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Mauritania and Yemen.
The report, prepared by the House Judiciary Committee, found that tens of thousands of nationals from countries that could pose a risk to national security were identified, including 2,134 Afghans, 33,347 Chinese, 541 Iranians, 520 Syrians and 3,104 Uzbeks.
The report cites information provided to committee staff by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in June.
Migrants, mainly from Central America and Venezuela, rest on their way to the United States to escape poverty and violence on the outskirts of Huixtla, Chiapas state, Mexico on July 24
“This does not include the countless numbers of potential terrorists who have evaded Border Patrol to enter the United States, amounting to nearly 2 million ‘escapes’ since the start of the Biden-Harris administration,” the report said.
In June, eight Tajik nationals with possible ties to ISIS were arrested in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles in a coordinated police operation.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force “began monitoring the eight as part of an investigation into ‘a possible terrorist threat originating in Central Europe.’
Three of them had entered the US after making an asylum claim through the CBP One phone application, three of them were encountered by Border Patrol while crossing the border, and another arrived somewhere without having made an asylum claim.
Republicans have issued dire warnings about the threat potential of an overwhelmed border that cannot be relied upon to keep out potential terrorists. Biden has insisted that it would take an act of Congress to secure the country’s border.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico walk past large buoys placed as a border barrier
The U.S. has seen 1.8 million border crossings in fiscal year 2024 through June. The numbers dropped to 130,000 in June, from a record high of 301,000 in December.
Conservatives argue he has the executive power to do this. Earlier this year, they killed a bipartisan immigration bill over concerns it didn’t go far enough.
Also in June, it was reported that U.S. agents were busy rounding up more than 400 immigrants smuggled across the U.S. border by an ISIS-linked human smuggling network from Central Asia and considered “subjects of concern.”
The migrants crossed the southern border and were screened by U.S. Border Patrol upon entry, but were not apprehended at the time because they were not on the government’s terrorism watch list, NBC News reported.
By the time the news broke, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had already arrested 150 of the 400 migrants.
However, the locations of 50 of them were completely unknown to the American authorities.
The more than 400 migrants are believed to come from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Russia.
These countries have strong ties to ISIS and its offshoot, ISIS-K.