By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. President Joe Biden has come under fire after migrants with alleged links to the Islamic State group were detained in major American cities.
Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, where most raids happened, are “sanctuary cities,” the term for areas welcoming migrants. It wasn’t immediately clear whether local police assisted with the raids.
Those detained reportedly entered the United States through the Mexico-U.S. border last year after initially traveling from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic.
The suspects reportedly raised no security concerns after their initial entry, but authorities later linked them to Islamic State, which the U.S. designated as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Tajikistan has become a hotbed of “terrorists recruiting activity,” and Tajik nationals were suspects in the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack near Moscow that killed at least 145 people and injured hundreds more, officials said.
“Over the last few days [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE agents arrested several non-citizens pursuant to immigration authorities. The actions were carried out in close coordination with the [Federal Bureau of Investigation] FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” said the FBI and Department of Homeland Security in a statement.
“The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings. As the FBI and [Department of Homeland Security] DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the U.S. has been in a heightened threat environment,” they added. “The FBI and DHS will continue working around the clock with our partners to identify, investigate, and disrupt potential threats to national security.”
FAILED IMMIGRATION
However, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, a Republican, suggested the arrests highlighted Biden’s failed immigration policies.
“Almost weekly, we are getting reports that someone with terrorist ties or other major criminal connections has been released into our country by the Biden administration and allowed to roam free for months or even years,” he said in a statement obtained by Worthy News.
“Such bad actors exploiting our borders used to be the exception—it’s quickly becoming the rule under President Biden and now-impeached [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas,” Green complained.
“It’s only a matter of time before one of these individuals connected to a terrorist group is involved in something devastating on U.S. soil, and this administration will be responsible. How much longer will we let this madness continue?” he wondered.
Mayorkas has reportedly said that inadmissible aliens are “screened and vetted,” but “he knows how misleading this claim is,” Green stressed.
Several sources confirmed that U.S. border officials have struggled to root out criminal backgrounds or possible security threats.
In addition, China, Venezuela, and Cuba do not share migrant security information with the United States, U.S. officials said. Green accused Biden and Mayorkas’ DHS of failing to “properly vet” individuals on the terrorist watchlist.
US BORDER
In 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency released an “illegal alien” on the terror watchlist into the country, U.S. authorities said.
He was freed before proper screening was completed, added Border Patrol agents as the processing center “was over capacity following an increase in apprehensions.”
The agents said the tensions “created pressure to process migrants quickly and decreased the time available to review each file.” In April 2024, an “Afghan illegal” alien was found to be associated with the terrorist group Hezb-e-Islami a year after being released by ICE, Worthy News learned.
An “Uzbek illegal” alien associated with Islamic State, also known as ISIS, had been apprehended and released by Border Patrol after crossing the border in Arizona. He was detained on May 1 after living in the U.S. freely for two years, sources said.
In August 2023, former immigration judge Andrew Arthur testified to Congress that there was “no way to vet” individuals coming in via the CBP One mass-parole scheme “for criminal histories or terrorist intent in any meaningful way before releasing them into the United States. … [T]he toll this scheme will impose on border security is patent and significant.”
DHS’s 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment clarifies the threat, stating, “Terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
While Biden recently seemed to toughen border security, his main rival in this year’s presidential elections, Donald J. Trump, has said the measures don’t go far enough.
Trump said millions have entered the country under Biden, who halted Trump’s anti-migration wall erected near the border with Mexico.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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