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US can stop border-crossing terrorists with – Obama administration policies?

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Uzbek “special interest aliens” in Tapachula, Mexico after crossing from Guatemala on their way to the U.S. Southwest Border. January 2022 photo by Todd Bensman

By Todd BensmanĀ as published June 12, 2024Ā by The New York Post

Near-misses from the worst mass migration border crisis in American history keep coming at us like machine-gun fire.

This month, FBI counterterrorism agentsĀ arrested six Tajikistani nationals on terrorism chargesĀ after they illegally crossed the southwest border from Mexico, apparently foiling a terror plot linked to the ISIS-K terror group in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The arrests came soon after a Russian who illegally crossed the border wasĀ convicted and sentenced in CaliforniaĀ on terrorism charges for buying weaponry for an al Qaeda group in Syria, as the FBI said he would have gone kinetic had he not been charged.

In May, a Jordanian national who illegally crossed the border from MexicoĀ staged a vehicle ramming attackĀ on Marine Corps Base Quantico that all involved federal agenciesĀ refuse to publicly rule outĀ as a terror incident.

This year, Border Patrol agents overrun by the mass migration crisis haveĀ accidentally released at least seven immigrantsĀ  who were on the FBIā€™s terrorism watch list when they illegally crossed the southern border, according to multiple reports, sparking frantic manhunts to capture them.

Thatā€™s just a fractional few of many disturbing cases.

For years prior to the historic mass migration crisis that President Biden kicked off on his inauguration day in 2021, the US media laughed off the threat of terrorist border infiltration as the stuff of baseless right-wing fear-mongering ā€” such as when then-President Donald Trump said in 2018 that Middle Easterners were moving with US-bound caravans through Central America and Mexico.

Much good company has joined the once-ridiculed Paul Reveres, including FBI Director Christopher Wray and the apparently spooked authors of aĀ surprisingly anxious Foreign Affairs magazine essayĀ published this week.

But while many are sounding border infiltration alarms, few have offered solutions.

Perhaps Republican border hawks should turn to an unexpected ally: Democratic Party stalwart Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obamaā€™s secretary of homeland security.

In 2016, during his final months in office, Johnson became a true believer in the threat posed by ā€œspecial interest aliens,ā€ or SIAs: border-crossing migrants from 35 to 40 nations where Islamic terrorist groups are active.

After 9/11, one of the most important counterterrorism protocols implemented on the border required agents to detain all SIAs until they could undergo face-to-face interviews to determine if these total strangers harbored potential terror connections or intent.

In June 2016, Johnson was so fearful about SIA border crossers that he sent aĀ memorandumĀ to his top deputies demanding their ā€œimmediate attentionā€ to ā€œthe increased global movement of SIAs.ā€

He ordered the formation of a ā€œmulti-DHS Component SIA Joint Action Groupā€ that would assess the entire program and create a tightly coordinated international action plan to ā€œcounter the threats posed by the smuggling of SIAs.ā€

ā€œI want to ensure we are bringing the full resources of the Department to bear in a coordinated manner on the issue of SIAs,ā€ he wrote, to build on existing counter-SIA programs.

Johnsonā€™s completely prudent plan to intensify the vetting of SIAs at the border and to take down terrorist smugglers in other countries got lost in the chaos of the transition to Donald Trumpā€™s presidency.

His intended revamp never happened ā€” and the catastrophic Biden-engineered mass migration crisis vaporized whatever was left of it.

While SIA traffic over the border had previously amounted to 3,000 to 4,000 individuals annually, SIA traffic since 2021 has reached an unimaginableĀ 70,000 to 80,000Ā per year.

Federal intelligence and law enforcement officials could no longer interview even a smidgeon of those SIAs, who are mostly waved into the country with no interviews.

ā€œDue to massive numbers of illegal aliens overwhelming CBP, in-depth face-to-face interviews are nonexistent,ā€ former Chief Border Patrol Agent Rodney ScottĀ testifiedĀ before the House Judiciary Committee last September on the subject of terrorist border infiltration.

The first fix is, of course, almost too obvious to mention: Reduce the total numbers of illegal aliens pouring over the southwest border.

But the far less obvious fix is this one, regardless of how many are crossing: We must resurrect Johnsonā€™s 2016 initiative to interview SIAs before they are released on asylum, and target their smugglers for prosecution and prison.

As importantly, we must adequately fund and equip this massive effort ā€” no matter how many SIAs arrive.

If Johnsonā€™s 2016 plan was nonpartisan enough for the Obama administration, it should be good enough for the Biden DHS, or a Trump one. And, we can hope, not too late to stop the next terrorism attempt within the United States.

Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is the author of ā€œAmericaā€™s Covert Border Warā€ (2021).

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COVID-19

5 Stories the Media Buried This Week

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The Vigilant Fox

#5 – Anthony Fauci warns: ā€œThe next outbreak will be of a respiratory disease thatā€™s easily transmissible, that has a significant degree of morbidity and mortality.ā€

ā€œWhat is likely to happen,ā€ Fauci says, ā€œis the emergence of another respiratory disease.ā€

ā€œIt may be another coronavirus, because we know that coronaviruses, really, mostly in bats, have the capability of binding to receptors that are in humans.ā€

ā€œIt could be another flu,ā€ Fauci continued. ā€œWeā€™re dealing with H5N1 now, which is bird flu, which has taken the somewhat disturbing step of infecting mammals, namely cows and cats and other mammals, which means itā€™s adapting itself more to a human.ā€

ā€œSo my concern, Walter, is that whenever that happens, the next outbreak will be of a respiratory disease thatā€™s easily transmissible, that has a significant degree of morbidity and mortality,ā€ Fauci said.

When asked if the cuts at HHS and ā€œour attitude towards scienceā€ are making the situation ā€œa little bit more dangerous,ā€ Fauci replied, ā€œOh, absolutely!ā€

VIDEO:Ā @TheChiefNerd

 

#4 – Dr. Oz drops bombshells on the massive waste, fraud, and abuse bleeding Medicare and Medicaid.

Oz explained that people are unknowingly signed up for coverage, illegal schemes are funneling taxpayer dollars to those who arenā€™t eligible, and the same patient can be billed in multiple states with no federal oversight catching it.

It also turns out that 230,000 Americans were enrolled in Obamacare plans without even knowing it.

#3 ā€“ Tucker Carlson is horrified to learn that over 9 million children have already received the COVID shotā€”and that the injections are still happening.

His reaction at the end of this clip says it all.

VIDEO:Ā @McCulloughFund

While youā€™re here, donā€™t forget to subscribe to get this top 10 list emailed to you each week.

 

#2 – Jenny McCarty reveals chilling encounter after speaking out on vaccine issue.

ā€¢ After going public about her sonā€™s autism and the vaccine link, Jenny McCarthy received a private visit from a man with a warning.

ā€¢ He claimed to work for a top-level PR firm and said he was approached by a government agency.

ā€¢ His job? To create a campaign to discredit her and label her ā€œanti-vaccine.ā€

ā€¢ He said he turned down the offerā€”because his own child had gone through the same thing.

ā€¢The man warned her that they would find someone else to do it and use the media to come after her hard.

ā€¢ McCarthy was stunned and asked him to repeat everythingā€”she said she had chills all over her body.

ā€¢ When she asked why theyā€™d attack her despite her not being anti-vaccine, he replied, ā€œDoesnā€™t matter.ā€

ā€¢ According to him, they had the media on their side and would do whatever it took to bury her message.

#1 – Billionaire Democrat donor turned DOGE ally drops bombshell and says Bidenā€™s border policies handed $13ā€“15 billion a year to human traffickersā€”and helped import future Democratic voters.

ā€œWe gave $13 to $15 billion a year to human traffickers. Thatā€™s what this system did,ā€ Antonio Gracias lamented.

Graciasā€™ team combed through voter rolls in four states and uncovered thousands of non-citizens not only registered to vote, but in many cases, actually voted.

ā€œWe looked at the voter rolls in four states, and we found thousands of these people [non-citizens] on the voter rolls, and we found many of those people had voted. In one state in particular, well over a thousand voted.ā€

His conclusion?

ā€œI think this [Bidenā€™s border policy] was a move to import voters.ā€

VIDEO:Ā @KanekoaTheGreat

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illegal immigration

Court attempts to halt Trump deportations, El Salvador president says ‘too late’

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From The Center Square

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A class action lawsuit was filed on Saturday against the Trump administration after President Donald Trump signed anĀ executive orderĀ invoking the Enemy Aliens Act to target, arrest and remove violent Venezuelan prison gang members, Tren de Aragua (TdA), from the U.S.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation on behalf of five Venezuelans illegally in the country who were detained in Texas and New York. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

On Saturday, nearly 300 violent illegal foreign nationals were removed from the U.S. and arrived in El Salvador with the cooperation of El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele after reaching an agreement with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

ā€œThe first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country,ā€ BukeleĀ said in a postĀ on X. ā€œThey were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).ā€

El Salvador also received 23 MS-13 gang members from the U.S. who were wanted by Salvadoran authorities, Bukele said. They include two ringleaders, one of whom ā€œis a member of the criminal organizationā€™s highest structure.ā€ Those sent to El Salvador by the U.S. will help Bukeleā€™s government ā€œfinalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators and sponsors.

ā€œAs always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place. All in a single action. May God bless El Salvador, and may God bless the United States,ā€ he said.

The U.S. government is paying a small fee to detain them, Bukele said, and the prison is also making money because it requires inmates to work. These additional inmates, ā€œcombined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable,ā€ he said, noting that it costs $200 million a year to maintain.

In response, Rubio thanked Bukele saying, ā€œEl Salvador has agreed to hold the violent criminals ā€œin their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars. President Nayib Bukele is not only the strongest security leader in our region, heā€™s also a great friend of the U.S.ā€

In an emergency hearing held on Saturday, a federal judge ruled that deportations of violent Venezuelans be temporarily halted and those who were illegally in the country and already removed be returned. The ACLU said the order blocked the administration ā€œfrom deporting anyone under the Alien Enemies Act while the case proceeds. Flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants the DHS attempted to deport have been ordered to turn around and return to the U.S.ā€

A U.S. federal judge has no jurisdiction over foreign governments.

In response, BukeleĀ postedĀ on X, ā€œOopsie ā€¦ Too late,ā€ with a laughing emoji.

Bukele also posted videos and pictures of them arriving in El Salvador in handcuffs. The video shows them being met by El Salvadoran military wearing riot gear and transported in armored vehicles to CECOT. The videos depict El Salvadoran officials lifting up their shirts to show tattoos of gang member affiliation, officials shaving the heads of kneeling inmates and their admittance as CECOT inmates.

Cooperation between the U.S. and El Salvador expanded under Trump and Rubio, representing a reversal of Biden administration policy that used taxpayer money and planes to transport illegal foreign nationals into the U.S.

Trump has been aggressively targeting of TdA after a recordĀ more than 1 million VenezuelansĀ illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, including TdA members expanding operations in at least 22 states, The Center Square first reported.

Under the Trump administration, Venezuelan repatriation flights also began, paid for by the Venezuelan government, negotiated by the Trump administration, The Center SquareĀ reported.

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