Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are voicing new concerns about what the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel could mean for homeland security in the United States given major vulnerabilities at the southern border.
Republican and Democratic members of Congress said more needs to be done to secure the U.S. southern border with Mexico after seeing how militants from a foreign terrorist organization broke across the Israel-Gaza Strip border and committed mass atrocities.
US EMBASSY IN EGYPT WARNS CITIZENS TO USE ‘INCREASED SECURITY’ AFTER TOURIST DEATHS
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) has led House Republicans calls this year for the Biden administration to act on the burgeoning border problem that has crippled sanctuary cities and states far north of the border in New England and the Midwest.
“Evil actors, including terrorist groups, are constantly seeking to exploit weaknesses in our national security, and unfortunately, Secretary Mayorkas’ open border has given them a golden opportunity to do so,” Green said. “The horrific and cowardly attacks on our indispensable ally Israel are a sober reminder that we cannot take our own homeland security for granted.”
Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) said not only should President Joe Biden declare “unwavering support” for Israel but “finally” admit to and fix vulnerabilities at the U.S. border after more than 7 million people have been encountered attempting to enter the country without authorization under his tenure.
“Recognize the fact that his failure to secure our border is putting American citizens at risk as well,” Pfluger, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and Law Enforcement, said.
The situation at the southern border has overwhelmed the 19,000-person Border Patrol. Over the past two years, many illegal immigrants have been observed on camera and other technology entering the country, only to get away due to a shortage of agents to respond and pursue all sightings because of how Mexican smuggling organizations, known as cartels, use people and drugs to divert agents for their own advantage.
“With more Border Patrol agents being used to process inadmissible aliens, there are less men and women securing the border, allowing 1.6 million known gotaways into the country, an unknown amount of which could be bad actors. From a national security perspective, these policies are a disaster,” Green said.
Since the start of fiscal 2023 last October through August, Border Patrol agents on the U.S.-Mexico boundary have caught 151 non-U.S. citizens who, after being processed, were determined to be on the FBI’s terror watch list for being a terrorist or affiliated with someone who was.
The 151 figure is the highest annual number in the Border Patrol’s 99-year history, surpassing the previous record of 98 people in 2022 and 15 people in 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
CBP data published in a Fox News report Tuesday found that more than 10,000 illegal immigrants from special interest countries Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, and Syria had been arrested at the border between October 2021 and October 2023.
“We know that thousands of special interest aliens from the Middle East, hundreds of known and suspected terrorists, and thousands of criminals have been caught crossing our southern border,” Pfluger said. “But this doesn’t begin to account for the possible terrorists likely to be among the 1.6 million gotaways who have snuck into our country illegally.”
One Senate Republican said the threat posed by so many terrorist and special interest immigrant arrests was serious.
“It only took 19 al Qaeda operatives to kill nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), ranking member for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism, in a statement to the Washington Examiner onTuesday. “Many, many times that number of known terrorists have surely crossed our southern border since Joe Biden took office. His open border is the gravest terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.”
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) both expressed a strong desire to prevent terrorists from entering the United States, particularly by way of the southern border.
Higgins said the U.S. must also pay attention to its northern border with Canada, which is twice as long as the southern border and has no large-scale government barrier to impede illegal entries or funnel people to cross in one particular area where they are guaranteed to be encountered.
“The northern border has become attractive to international terrorists as well,” said Higgins, House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement ranking member.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Cuellar, ranking member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security who helped increase CBP’s budget by 15% over the past two years, said law enforcement on the front lines still needs more technology and staffing at ports of entry and in between the ports.
“Border security is national security. The horrific attacks in Israel reaffirm the need to secure our border and prevent terrorists from entering our country,” Cuellar said. “I will continue to push for solutions that our men and women on the front line need, such as more border technology and personnel at ports of entry and in between ports.”
