Since President Joe Biden took office, hundreds of the illegal aliens caught crossing the US Southern border were matches on the federal government’s “Terrorist Watch List”.
On July 12, 2023 Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-09) issued the following statement in response to a recent report from Judicial Watch noting the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) releasing an illegal alien on the terrorist watch list in Yuma, Arizona:
“What is happening along the Southern Border in Yuma is a disgrace. In addition to Yuma being overrun by a flood of illegal aliens and deadly drugs, a terrorist on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist was recently released. Shockingly, it took two weeks for this terrorist to be arrested.”
“Joe Biden has put our entire country and the safety of all Americans at risk because of his failed open-border policies. Under Biden’s watch, more than 125 terrorists have crossed the southern border in the last eight months. Imagine how many more that got away!”
But as with other issues concerning many Americans, the Biden administration is withholding crucial information on these potential terrorists trying to discreetly enter the country.
In response, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) filed a lawsuit against The Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The lawsuit alleges DHS is withholding key details on terror suspects who have been apprehended at the United States-Mexico border in the last three years, a new lawsuit alleges.
The CIS lawsuit follows the organizations filing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for “records reflecting the nationalities and group affiliations of the record-breaking 270 illegal border-crossers who have flagged on the FBI terrorism watch since 2021.”
The suit comes as national interest in terrorist border crossings as war in the Middle East escalates, raising fears about the potential for retaliation against U.S. backing for Israel or that some migrants from the region may strike impulsively in their emotional distress about the news.
“CIS believed filing this suit was necessary for multiple reasons,” CIS’s Chief FOIA Counsel Colin Farnsworth told Todd Bensman. “There is a heightened public interest in the requested records, and there are indications [Customs and Border Patrol] is imposing unreasonable delays on the processing of those records.”
In an agency memo this month, DHS officials admitted that the terrorism threat coming across the border is increasingly an issue for Americans’ national security.
The officials said they “expect continued high numbers of migrant encounters over the next year” and that “terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.
Ella Ford