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The Biden administration has caught and released at least 99 illegal immigrants whose identities matched the terrorism watch list, according to a congressional report Monday.
They were caught by the Border Patrol along the southern border from 2021 through 2023 and were subsequently released as part of the Biden administration’s more relaxed approach to immigration, the House Judiciary Committee said.
Another 34 illegal immigrants flagged by the watchlist were still being held as of June.
Since the start of fiscal 2021, Border Patrol agents at the southern border have detected 375 people whose names triggered the watchlist, including 282 from 2021 through 2023. That indicates that more than one-third of terrorism watchlist migrants are being released.
Those encountered spanned 36 countries, including the terror hot spots of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan and Yemen.
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At least 27 of the terrorism suspects were granted bond by an immigration judge, and four were granted asylum, the House report said. Investigators said most immigration judges don’t have access to top-secret information, meaning they may not even know the dangers presented by migrants appearing before them and asking for release.
“Releasing terrorists into the United States has become almost routine for the Biden-Harris administration,” said the report, prepared by the Republican staff of the House Judiciary Committee and released by Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican.
The number of terrorism suspects detected has been known, but what happened to them has been closely guarded by the Biden administration.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have been pressing to make the data public. The report says the data came from the Homeland Security Department in June.
The Washington Times has reached out to the department for comment.
In testimony on Capitol Hill, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has acknowledged that some are being released and others detained.
“If an individual is on the terrorist screening dataset, and they pose a threat to national security or public safety, they are a priority for detention,” he said in an April appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee.
The rate of border terrorism arrests has been down significantly in recent months, suggesting some changes in the pattern of new arrivals.
In June, the Border Patrol arrested three people whose identities triggered the watchlist. That was the lowest number in a single month since Homeland Security began reporting the numbers in 2022.
Still, watchlist arrests don’t tell the whole story.
The new report argues that “untold scores of potential terrorists” have entered the U.S. but weren’t on the watchlist at the time they were first encountered.
“That is a bigger concern,” FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress late last month.
He pointed to the case of eight Tajik migrants. Authorities had to go out into communities and arrest them on immigration charges after belatedly concluding they were terrorist risks.
The new report said three of the Tajiks came into the U.S. thanks to a special “parole” program created by the Biden administration. That program grants leniency to unauthorized migrants who preschedule their arrivals at border crossings using a smartphone app.
Four more of the Tajik migrants were arrested by Border Patrol agents and subsequently released. The remaining one was admitted through a border crossing despite not having used the smartphone app.
The new committee report said cases like that undercut Mr. Mayorkas’ assurances.
“As DHS’s release into the U.S. of potential terrorists illustrates, Secretary Mayorkas’s statement is wrong and DHS’s vetting of illegal aliens at the border is insufficient to uncover derogatory information on potentially dangerous aliens,” the staff report said.
Mr. Wray, in his testimony last month, said the danger of a terrorist being inserted into the U.S. is rising, thanks to the immigration system.
He said he is worried about “soft target” attacks like the one Islamic State terrorists pulled off in Russia this spring when they killed more than 140 people at a concert hall.
“I am increasingly concerned that foreign terrorists could seek to exploit vulnerabilities at our southwest border or at other ports of entry or other aspects of our immigration system to facilitate an attack here in the United States,” Mr. Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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