House Republicans demand answers from Biden administration after Palestinian terror suspects nabbed at border: ‘Systemic problem’
House Republicans asked two top Biden administration officials on Tuesday to provide more information about the three suspected Palestinian terrorists who were apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border illegally last month.
The letter, addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray, comes after Border Patrol agents detained the Palestinian nationals and one migrant from Turkey also suspected of having ties to terror groups along the San Diego sector of the border. The incident is being investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“These recent arrests highlight a systemic pattern in the rise of known or suspected terrorists attempting to, and successfully, crossing the Southwest border,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Reps. Clay Higgins (R-La.), Dan Bishop (R-NC) and August Pfluger (R-Texas) wrote in their missive.
The lawmakers note that they have not been told “whether these individuals have ties to Hamas, Hizballah (sic), or another US-designated foreign terrorist organization” and demand that Wray and Mayorkas provide Congress with the “complete Alien Files” of the four individuals as well as information potentially linking them terror groups and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and prosecutor notes relating to the foreign nationals.
They ask that the Biden administration officials comply with their request by Aug. 27.
“We remain concerned about the threat of a ‘lone wolf’ actor or multiple actors attempting to commit a terrorist attack in the United States,” the Republican congressmen explained. “The Committee finds unacceptable that the Biden-Harris administration is dangerously failing to take measures to safeguard US national security.”
The Post previously reported that one of the detained terror suspects had “salacious photos” on their phone — including a picture of a masked man holding an AK-47 rifle, according to federal law enforcement sources — and that overwhelmed Border Patrol agents in the San Diego sector do not have access to terror or criminal databases from other countries, leading to fears that they may be letting migrants with ties to terror groups into the country.
The San Diego Border Patrol agents were warned in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that Palestinians with ties to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah may try crossing the US-Mexico border illegally.
“San Diego Field Office Intelligence Unit assesses that individuals inspired by, or reacting to the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border,” one alert to agents read.
“Foreign fighters motivated by ideology or mercenary soldiers of fortune may attempt to obfuscate travel to or from the US to or from countries in the Middle East through Mexico,” the memo added.
DHS has also been trying to track down 50 migrants who were brought into the US with the help of an ISIS-tied smuggling organization.
“That’s a threat stream that we’re very concerned about,” Wray told lawmakers in March when asked about the case.
Nearly 300 individuals on terror watchlists have been apprehended crossing the southern border since fiscal year 2022, according to federal data.
When has indicated that it is a distinct possibility that terrorists could be among the1.8 million “gotaways,” or people who illegally made their way into the US without being apprehended by border agents, under the Biden administration.
“I think there are many ways the national security ramifications of the issues at the border are better reflected in some ways more by what we don’t know about the people who snuck in, provided fake documents or in some other way, got in when there wasn’t sufficient information about the time they came in to connect the dots,” he said in March.
