illegal immigration
Surge In ‘Inadmissible’ Afghans Trying To Cross Southern Border Is Nothing Short Of Alarming
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
There is good reason for Americans to be concerned about individuals from Afghanistan coming across our southern border.
When Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, testified in the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 7 he issued a warning about ISIS-K, a terrorist group based in Afghanistan.
“[V]arious groups in the Central Region retain the capability and will to target U.S. interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” Kurilla said in a written statement to the committee.
“We assess an attack on American soil would likely take longer,” he said.
“Taliban pressure against ISIS-K temporarily disrupted the group’s ability to plan and conduct attacks against the Homeland and Western targets, but that pressure has been intermittent and insufficient,” Kurilla said in his statement.
“ISIS-K and its allies retain a safe haven in Afghanistan, and they continue to develop their networks in and out of the country,” he said.
“Their goals do not stop there,” he said.
“They have called for attacks globally on anyone not aligned with their extremist ideology, and Taliban efforts to suppress the group have proven insufficient,” he said. “The recent ISIS attack in Kerman, Iran demonstrates the group’s resiliency and indicates that they retain the capability to conduct spectacular external operations.”
What happened in Kerman?
“ISIS-K killed 91 Iranians and injured 284 others in Kerman on 3 January 2024,” Kurilla said. “This was the deadliest terror attack in Iran since 1979 and it is part of ISIS’ effort to exploit the war in Gaza to rejuvenate its global attacks.”
ISIS-K is not the only terrorist group in Afghanistan.
“Al Qaeda, while weakened, still enjoys safe havens in Afghanistan and Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) operates training camps, safehouses, and religious schools in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Both AQIS and AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] continue to call for lone wolf attacks on U.S. and Western interests via their digital reach,” he said.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who served as a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan, questioned Kurilla about what he had said about ISIS and al-Qaeda.
In this exchange, Kurilla said an ISIS attack in Europe or Eurasia is more likely in the near future than one in the United States itself.
“You said — and this is close to a direct quote — that we could see attacks against U.S. or Western interests abroad with little to no warning in as little as six months,” Cotton said. “Are you speaking there about ISIS and al-Qaeda from Afghanistan?”
Kurilla responded: “ISIS-Khorasan specifically, and also out of Syria, which they are trying to factor into predominantly European countries.”
“So,” said Cotton, “ISIS out of either Afghanistan or Syria, attacks against U.S. interests and Western interests abroad in as little as six months. Now, abroad can mean a lot of things. Abroad could mean our embassy in Tajikistan. It could also mean Western Europe or North America.
“Could you be more specific?” Cotton asked.
“Europe and Eurasia,” said Kurilla.
“What is the timeline you foresee in which those terrorist organizations could launch an attack with little or no warning against the American homeland?” asked Cotton.
“I think it is … a lot more difficult for them to be able to do that and requires substantially more resources,” responded Kurilla.
“OK,” said Cotton, “so six months anywhere across Eurasia and indeterminate time in North America?”
“Yes,” said CENTCOM’s commander.
When Kurilla had testified in the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2023, he admitted that U.S. intelligence gathering in Iraq had diminished.
“At one time, we had 60 balloons over Kabul, Afghanistan,” Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said to Kurilla then. “Our ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance] is very limited. How confident are you in the intelligence you have to see threats rising from the Taliban?”
“Our intelligence has degraded since we are no longer in Afghanistan,” Kurilla said. “I believe we can see the broad contours of an attack. Sometimes we lack the granularity to see the full picture and we’re working to close that gap with our alternative airborne ISR and some of our other intelligence that we are working to penetrate those networks.”
Since this nation’s military forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration has been conducting “Operation Enduring Sentinel.” Last month, the inspectors general for this operation released their report for the first quarter of 2024.
Operation Enduring Sentinel, it explains, is “the U.S. mission to conduct over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations against threats emanating from Afghanistan and to engage with Central Asian and South Asian regional partners to combat terrorism and promote regional stability.”
The United States, of course, is continuing to accept refugee applications from people fleeing the situation in Afghanistan. “From October 1, 2020, to March 6, 2024, USCIS interviewed approximately 24,400 Afghan refugee applicants,” said the inspectors general report.
Then there are those who are not refugee applicants.
“In addition,” said the report, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 68 Afghan ‘inadmissible non-citizens’ at the U.S. Southwest Border in FY 2022 and 342 in FY 2023.
“As of March 5,” it said, “CBP had encountered 932 in FY 2024.”
How many “inadmissible non-citizen” Afghans made it across the southwest border in those first 156 days of this fiscal year without being encountered by the Border Patrol?
It only took 19 al-Qaeda terrorists to carry out the 9/11 attack.
Terence P. Jeffrey is the investigative editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation. To find out more about Terence P. Jeffrey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
illegal immigration
Delusional Rumour Driving Some Migrants in Mexico to Reach US Border
From Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies as published by The Daily Mail
US law enforcement sources tell me the rumour is patently absurd
There were no signs of human life, just railroad tracks and a rough dirt road, six miles west of a small Mexican mountain town.
But this was definitely the place described to me.
On a recent trip to Mexico City’s sprawling migrant encampments, I heard again and again stories about groups of immigrants who were breaking away from these urban bases and disappearing into the vast highland wilderness outside the city.
Now, I’d gone to find them.
As my translator and I picked our way through the mountain landscape dotted with pines, prickly pear cacti and brambles 40 miles northeast of Mexico City, the high desert looked empty.
Then we spotted someone watching us from behind a cluster of rocks.
‘Not immigration!’ I shouted in Spanish. ‘Friendly journalists. Please show yourselves.’
With that, some two dozen bleary-eyed men, women and children emerged from their hidey holes.
On a recent trip to Mexico City’s sprawling migrant encampments, I heard again and again stories about groups of immigrants who were breaking away from these urban bases and disappearing into the vast highland wilderness outside the city.
They were in rough condition, having just weathered a night on bare ground, too frightened of roaming Mexican immigration officers to build fires and too cold to sleep.
They’d brought water jugs but no food, blankets or even the most rudimentary camping gear. All of them repeatedly begged me for something to eat. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything.
‘We haven’t eaten since yesterday. We don’t have that much money,’ a Venezuelan man named Jesus told me.
Another young Venezuelan, who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident back home, navigated the rough terrain on crutches, an empty pant leg flapping wildly. They told me that other groups were camped in the area.
Why?
Most of the migrants I met in Mexico City said they were giving up on their plans to sneak into America. As I reported last week, these people were either returning to their home countries or settling in Mexico.
Clearly, threats from the incoming Trump administration to close the border and deport all illegals are having the desired deterrent effect.
Other migrants said they’d make up their minds before the President-elect’s January 20 inauguration, to see if the Biden administration would approve their applications for ‘humanitarian parole’.
Using the Biden-created ‘CBP One’ mobile app to lodge such claims, some 771,000 migrants have entered into the US since January 2023. Trump has said he’ll end the program on Day One.
But there is a contingent of migrants who are refusing to be turned away. These are the ones escaping from urban encampments into the woods, in a race against time to illegally cross the border before Trump’s swearing-in.
They’d brought water jugs but no food, blankets or even the most rudimentary camping gear. All of them repeatedly begged me for something to eat. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything.
It’s hard not to conclude that these migrants were drawn here, in large part, by President Biden’s disastrous immigration policies, resulting in more than 10 million migrants entering the US during his term. The message that has been sent to the world the past four years is that, if you make it to the border, you’ll likely find a way to cross.
And indeed, as I soon learned, this group had been convinced by a particularly delusional rumor sweeping Mexico City’s migrant camps.
It’s their firm belief that on Wednesday, December 18, the US and Mexican governments are going to withdraw all troops and border guards, giving tens of thousands of migrants one last chance to cross the border before the coming Trump crackdown.
December 18 is ‘International Migrants Day’, declared by the United Nations in 2000, as a time to recognize the plight of migrants worldwide.
‘On International Migrant’s Day, they’re going to open the border gates,’ a young Ecuadorian man named Jason confidently explained to me.
Six men sitting around him nodded in agreement.
My US law enforcement sources tell me this is patently absurd, suggesting that Mexican cartels had concocted the rumor as a way to wring migrants for cash one last time before the era of Biden’s mass migration ends.
Nonetheless, I embedded myself for the day with this group of true believers – hailing from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Honduras – as they waited at a junction in the middle of the desert, where trains are known to stop for five to 10 minutes as the tracks are switched.
My US law enforcement sources tell me this is patently absurd, suggesting that Mexican cartels had concocted the rumor as a way to wring migrants for cash one last time before the era of Biden’s mass migration ends. (Above) Mexican immigration on patrol
The migrants’ plan was to hitch a ride on top of a freight train for a dangerous three or four-day trip north. The ultimate destination: The border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas.
Word was the next train was due at noon.
There were three mothers with six young children among the group of 25; only one of the kids was accompanied by a father.
The rest were single young men in their 20s, including several who admitted they’d illegally crossed the border before and made their way to Denver and Houston, only to be deported after serving time for crimes.
One of these men refused to allow me to record him on either audio or video. Another told me he had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol during his time in Denver.
Everyone was on edge – and for good reason.
Trump has threatened Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, with 25 percent trade tariffs if she does not do what she can to halt illegal migration.
In response, she has enhanced tough nationwide immigration enforcement operations. Mexican National Guard and immigration officers are patrolling rail lines with orders to capture every immigrant and ship them a thousand miles south to Mexican cities on the border with Guatemala.
The migrants fear that and more.
‘Mexican immigration takes your money away, whatever you have, they take it away,’ said Alexander, a 30-something Colombian. ‘We’re running away from them.’
Two young men anointed themselves lookouts to warn the others when strange vehicles approached. They asked me to hide my rental car in the brush.
As we waited for the noon train, a motorbike carrying a man and a woman pulled up on the dirt road running parallel to the train tracks.
‘Immigration knows you are all here,’ the man warned in Spanish. ‘They’ll take all of your cell phones and money and send you to Tapachula. Hide in the landfill.’
At this, the entire group bolted over the tracks to a mammoth fenced-off garbage dump and squeezed through holes in the chain link. The pile stunk terribly. In the refuse, the children found a feral dog nursing newborn puppies in a hole she’d dug.
Here we waited for several hours until a train horn sounded in the distance. Everyone rushed back through the fence, but were quickly disappointed. This train wasn’t going to work. The cars were cylindrical oil tanks – far too hazardous to ride on top of.
At this, the entire group bolted over the tracks to a mammoth fenced-off garbage dump and squeezed through holes in the chain link. The pile stunk terribly. In the refuse, the children found a feral dog nursing newborn puppies in a hole she’d dug.
Here we waited for several hours until a train horn sounded in the distance. Everyone rushed back through the fence, but were quickly disappointed. This train wasn’t going to work. The cars were cylindrical oil tanks – far too hazardous to ride on top of.
‘There’s no way they can get on,’ one of the lookouts said. ‘It’s going to be slippery. It’s very dangerous for the children on top.’
The wait continued.
More hours later, another train horn sounded. The migrants ran for it. The legless Venezuelan man on crutches somehow managing to keep up.
I followed close behind as the train stopped and the migrants scrambled up ladders onto the roof of one car. But, again, they were foiled.
A truck of armed Mexican National Guard troops and two immigration enforcement vans approached. Everyone rushed back down, dropping their backpacks off the train in a swirl of panic.
Seconds before the immigration vans arrived, they group disappeared into the brush.
I lingered to talk to the guards, but their vehicles never slowed. Though I could see that the two vans were full of migrants, perhaps caught elsewhere along the train line.
The train chugged away without anyone on it. And, shortly after, the migrants emerged from the brush once again.
This time, they refused to speak to me, hurrying off down the road… to a likely dead end.
illegal immigration
Shocking footage shows Biden admin selling off southern border wall before Trump takes office
From LifeSiteNews
By Wade Searle
Many notable GOP figures are pushing back on the Biden-Harris White House for an apparent attempt to greatly hinder the incoming Trump administration’s plan to finish the southern border wall.
The Biden administration has been caught moving away unused materials for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to be auctioned off online, according to shocking footage taken by a US Customs agent, with bidding starting at just $5.00.
A border patrol agent told The Daily Wire that the material for the construction of the border wall along the southern border of the United States is being taken from multiple areas in Arizona: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points, with the goal to “move all of it off the border before Christmas.” Footage provided by the border patrol agent shows several unused sections of border wall being taken away on flatbed trucks owned by DP Trucking LLC, a government contractor. The owner, Harold Lambeth, confirmed to Daily Wire over the phone that the border wall materials are indeed being transported away from construction sites– although he was “unable to disclose” any further information. The materials are being auctioned through GovPlanet, an online auction marketplace for surplus government equipment, with bidding for each section of wall panels beginning at just $5.00, according to the website. Materials for border wall construction were similarly sold by the Biden administration in 2023 through GovPlanet.
The Daily Wire exclusive led to widespread outrage on X, formerly known as Twitter, with many notable GOP figures pushing back on the Biden-Harris White House for an apparent attempt to greatly hinder the incoming Trump administration’s plan to finish the southern border wall. Elon Musk shared the footage in shock, writing “what!?” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said, “President Biden and Kamala Harris have successfully put illegal aliens over the safety and security of our own citizens,” in a statement posted to X on Thursday, adding, “Never forget why the American people rejected them.” Missouri Representative Eric Burlison accused the Biden administration of “intentionally sabotaging President Trump and the American people.”
Eric Schmitt, the Senator from Missouri, sent a letter on Friday to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding that he “immediately cease the auctioning off of border wall materials.” Most notably, the letter contains a thorough analysis of the already completed sales of border wall material, finding that the Biden-Harris administration is recouping just 0.02% of the taxpayer money used to originally purchase the material under President Trump’s first term.
Hope may not be lost for the unused border wall material, however. In a conversation with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick revealed that the state of Texas plans to purchase the border wall material up for auction and “give it to [President-Elect Donald] Trump.” Patrick told Ingraham that he has “a billion dollars in my pocket to do it,” adding that he plans to “go in and buy it all”. In a statement posted to X on Friday, the Lt. Gov wrote that “[Texas Governor Abbott] and I spoke last night about purchasing ‘wall’ material President Biden is auctioning off. The Governor had already instructed the [Texas Facilities Comission], which oversees Texas’ border wall construction, to look at what Biden was selling.” According to Patrick, the Texas Facilities Commission claims that the material for sale is mostly junk, including panels “covered in concrete and rust”.
“Rest assured, if they sell any panels that make economic sense, we will buy them and give them to President Trump when he takes office.” Lt. Gov. Patrick concluded.
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