OPINION:
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CNN recently ran a piece titled “Exclusive: Smuggler With Ties to ISIS Helped Migrants Enter from Mexico, Raising Alarm Bells Across Government.” That title should have read “Biden Administration Got Lucky When Terrorists Snuck Over Border.”
According to CNN, “Earlier this year, a cohort of migrants from Uzbekistan requested asylum and were screened by the Department of Homeland Security.”
CNN continued, “There was no information in any of the intelligence community’s databases that raised any red flags, and the people were all released into the U.S. pending a court date.”
But when the FBI determined that the group had been taken over the border by a smuggler with ties to the Islamic State group, the government sprang into action to protect the American people. Crisis averted. Nothing to see here. Please move along.
But was this really a success? No. This incident presents damning evidence of just how dangerous President Biden’s “let everybody in now and ask questions later” approach to border security is.
Good vetting occurs before an alien is admitted to the U.S. Its fundamental purpose is determining who the bad guys are so you know whom to let in and whom to keep out. As usual, however, the Biden administration got it backward. Whatever vetting occurred here happened after the threat had already been let into the U.S.
The laudatory comments are simply part of an attempt by White House officials to get ahead of this situation, just in case a terrorist plot develops later. CNN acknowledged as much, stating: “For some Biden administration officials, the episode is an example of the system working as it should: intelligence came to light about a particular group of migrants, and the U.S. responded with an investigation determining that they did not pose a threat.”
To date, however, nobody knows who any of these people are. If that concerns you, good. It should.
According to the most recent edition of the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism: Uzbekistan, terrorism and violent extremism concerns are still associated with the country, and significant numbers of Uzbek men went to Syria and Iraq to fight on behalf of ISIS. That shouldn’t be news to the national security wonks in the Biden administration.
The United States has already been the target of at least one terrorist attack perpetrated by an Uzbek national. On Oct. 31, 2017, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov deliberately drove a pickup truck into a group of cyclists on the Hudson River Park Bike Path in New York City, killing eight and injuring 11.
The attack prompted the White House under then-President Donald Trump to consider adding Uzbekistan to its list of terror-affiliated countries subject to travel restrictions.
Therefore, in a rational world, Customs and Border Protection would — now and for the time being — deny admission to any group of Uzbek men that showed up at the border without visas and proper travel documents. At the very least, they would be permitted to enter the U.S. only after stringent vetting had been completed.
But that hasn’t happened here. In this case, the Biden administration got caught with its pants down and had no idea it had a serious problem until the FBI was tipped off to the ISIS-affiliated smuggling ring.
To further complicate matters, neither CBP nor the FBI has any idea where to find most of the people smuggled into the U.S. by this person with ties to ISIS.
But that’s not even the worst aspect of this defeat that the White House insists on selling as a victory. This was one incident involving about a dozen people who must now be considered a significant terrorist risk.
But how many ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram or Hezbollah-linked smuggling networks have border authorities missed?
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, as of April 17, Mr. Biden had released just over 2 million southern border migrants into the U.S. And, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, as of Oct. 25, 2022, close to 6 million aliens had crossed our border illegally. That’s approximately 8 million people, about the population of New York City.
Most of those people have not been properly vetted and never will be. Illegal aliens aren’t screened against any databases unless they are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security.
And foreigners who pass through ports of entry or surrender to the Border Patrol are run against U.S. databases, but they often hail from countries that don’t share law enforcement or national security information with the U.S. As a result, we have no way of seeing whether their home country has any derogatory information on them.
What does all that mean? A massive tide of humanity is making its way into the U.S. Inevitably, a certain percentage of that human tidal wave will consist of foreign intelligence operatives and terrorists. This is why the Immigration and Nationality Act gives DHS broad powers to deport foreigners who present threats to our public safety.
Ultimately, border security is national security. The Biden administration can continue to misrepresent sheer luck as effective immigration enforcement.
But the reality is that if it continues to do nothing to secure our porous southern border, it is only a matter of time until its luck runs out and the U.S. winds up facing another major terrorist attack. And given the large number of unvetted foreigners currently at liberty in the U.S., the next one may make the attacks of Sept. 11 look like amateur hour.
• Tom Homan is a senior fellow at the Immigration Reform Law Institute and former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Matt O’Brien is director of investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the co-host of the podcast “No Border, No Country.” Immediately prior to working for the institute, he served as an immigration judge.
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