Washington, D.C. (July 5, 2023) – A Center for Immigration Studies analysis highlights a highly critical report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General on the release of a suspected terrorist during the mass migration crisis. The report describes how national security was compromised by multiple mistakes and communication breakdowns that occurred due to the unprecedented numbers of illegal border-crossers drawn by the Biden administration immigration policies.
According to the report, “CBP Released a Migrant on a Terrorist Watchlist, and ICE Faced Information Sharing Challenges Planning and Conducting the Arrest,” an unnamed migrant crossed the border illegally near Yuma, Ariz., in April 2022, along with the 30,000 others per month then pouring through an unfinished, cancelled section of Trump administration border wall. The alien raised suspicions as a potential terrorist, but due to the overwhelming number of migrants being processed, border agents released the person before resolving the alert.
Todd Bensman, a national security fellow at the Center, writes that according to the report, “under the pressure of processing historic numbers of illegal aliens pouring through the Yuma Sector all that Spring (28,681 that April, compared to 298 the same month in 2020), Border Patrol released the suspect with most of the rest on personal recognizance, a GPS tracking device, and an honor-system promise that they voluntarily report in later to an ICE office in the cities they chose to settle in.”
The illegal immigrant’s positive match on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist was only discovered after he boarded a commercial flight from California to Florida. However, it took two more weeks to locate and arrest the suspected terrorist in Tampa.
Bensman, who has reported extensively on similar incidents, said, “This report confirms a long-held thesis of mine, which is that the mass migration crisis has seriously eroded normal counterterrorism security programs at the southern border and created an elevated threat level environment.”
The report reveals breakdowns in communication and established processes for handling immigrants flagged on the FBI’s Terrorism Watchlist. Interviews and confirmations with suspects were not conducted before releases due to communication failures. The overwhelming number of migrants and the pressure to process them quickly were cited as reasons for the breakdown. The report also cited challenges in information sharing and coordination.
Bensman is the author of “America’s Covert Border War” and “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in American History.”
