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Texas DPS sounds alarm on ‘special interest aliens’ illegally entering from Mexico

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From The Center Square

Having an SIA designation does not necessarily mean the individual is a terrorist but their travel pattern “indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provides indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation.”

Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez is sounding the alarm about an increase of “Special Interest Aliens” (SIAs) being apprehended attempting to illegally enter the U.S. from Mexico.

In a social media post, he published a video of an interview between a Texas DPS trooper and a Turkish national, who was with a group of other Turkish men who illegally entered the country and were identified as SIAs.

Each of the SIAs had Turkish passports and were military age men.

The video depicts a female Texas Department of Public Safety trooper interviewing a Turkish national who spoke English. She asked him, “how did you guys make it over here?”

He said, “they found a network in Istanbul and some people took us first to Kuwait.”

When she asked them how they found the network, he replied, “Through Telegram, Instagram,” referring to a chat network and social media site.

He said they paid “$12 grand a person,” and the men with him confirmed they also paid that amount. He also said he didn’t know other people who were apprehended at the same time and standing nearby.

When she asked him what they were doing there in a remote area at the border, he said they were “looking for police to take us.”

“But do you have family, friends, anybody?” the trooper asked. “We have sponsors.”

When asked how they found the sponsors, he said through the network in Istanbul. When asked what a sponsor means, he said, “that means that they are going to take care of our expenses and everything.”

Olivarez said they weren’t the only SIAs that DPS troopers apprehended.

In the last 48 hours, DPS troopers have come across eight SIAs from five countries, all apprehended in a rural area of Normandy, Texas, in Maverick County, he said.

Texas DPS “uses every tool and resource,” working with local, county, and federal law enforcement partners to screen SIAs properly, he said, and “to provide transparency to the American public” about who’s illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

SIAs are noncitizens who based “on an analysis of travel patterns” are “known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism” who “potentially poses a national security risk to the United States,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security explains.

Having an SIA designation does not necessarily mean the individual is a terrorist but their travel pattern “indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provides indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation.”

In 2016 during the Obama administration, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered DHS to create a “‘multi-DHS Component SIA Joint Action Group’ to drive efforts to ‘counter the threats posed by the smuggling of SIAs.’” In 2019, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security released a report outlining the threat posed by SIAs and “unknown and other potentially dangerous individuals, traveling to the United States using illicit pathways.”

Earlier this week, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke testified before Congress about how he said the Biden administration instructed him to not publicize arrests of SIAs.

“We had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens … with significant ties to terrorism” illegally entering in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector, Heitke said.

Prior to the Biden-Harris administration, the sector averaged 10 to 15 SIAs per year. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” Heitke said.

“These are only the ones we caught,” meaning the number likely is higher because of the volume of gotaways, those who illegally cross the border and are not apprehended.

“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIA’s or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”

His testimony came as the greatest number of individuals on the U.S. federal terrorist watch list have been apprehended under the Biden-Harris administration of 1,856 since fiscal 2021 through August, The Center Square reported.

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Daily Caller

Former Acting ICE Director Says Biden Admin’s Border Policies Empower Cartels, Undermine National Security

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Mariane Angela

Former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan criticized the Biden administration’s border policies Friday on Fox News, arguing that they empower criminal cartels and undermine national security by allowing millions of immigrants into the country.

Border Patrol has encountered more than 7 million migrants at the southern border since the Biden-Harris administration took office, according to Customs and Border Protection. Homan said that the U.S. will continue to face significant illegal immigration unless former President Donald Trump returns to office.

“They’re not going anywhere, unless President Trump’s back in the White House,” Homan told Laura Ingraham, talking about an influx of migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. “Then they’re bringing thousands a day through the CBP1 app … Historic numbers. Mexico stepped up enforcement a little bit. Why? Because they don’t want President Trump to be president. You know who else don’t want President Trump to be president? The criminal cartels in Mexico who are making billions of dollars every month.”

The CBP1 is an app used by migrants seeking asylum to preschedule appointments for processing at the US-Mexico border, according to American Immigration Council.

“The government of Mexico don’t want President Trump to be president because the gravy train’s over. The terrorist organizations around the world who are using the southwest border as an entry point in this country, they don’t want President Trump to be president either,” he added.

Thousands of illegal migrants and other non-citizens convicted of serious offenses such as homicide and sexual assault are currently at large in the U.S, according to federal data disclosed in a letter on Wednesday. The letter, addressed to Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, indicates that there were over 662,566 non-citizens with criminal records on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) national docket as of July 21, encompassing both detained individuals and those not in custody.

Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua is reportedly exploiting the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis to expand its operations into the United States, with experts indicating that immigration authorities are unable to identify members of this group prior to their arrival on American soil.

During a forum hosted by Oprah Winfrey on Sept. 19, Vice President Kamala Harris gave an evasive response when asked about her strategy for tackling illegal immigration. She referenced her tenure as California’s Attorney General and a prosecutor, then shifted to discussing the failure of a bipartisan border bill, but never directly addressed the issue.

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Daily Caller

Illegal Aliens Are Registered To Vote — Now What?

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Jason Snead

This week, officials in Oregon announced the state had made a major mistake: Oregon automatically registered 1,259 noncitizens to vote. Last week, Arizona election officials realized they had for years failed to catch a software “coding oversight” that allowed nearly 100,000 people to vote without providing proof of citizenship.

If you are wondering how this could happen, you are not alone. After all, Democrats and most major media outlets spent the last few weeks insisting noncitizens cannot and do not register or vote in American elections. These news stories put the lie to those claims—claims peddled specifically to kill a bill in Congress that would ban noncitizen voting.

That bill, the SAVE Act, is designed to fix problems with federal law that let noncitizens illegally register and vote in federal elections. Speaker Mike Johnson tried to pass it alongside a spending measure, igniting a firestorm of liberal and media misinformation claiming that Republicans are risking a government shutdown over a bill to make it “harder to vote.”

That’s an absurd claim, even by today’s standards. The SAVE Act simply requires that states verify citizenship before allowing someone to register and vote in federal elections. To register, citizens can use the photo ID they use every day to drive, buy a beer or board a plane. Other records would work, too, like naturalization documents or birth certificates. And there are protections for any citizens who have none of these. The only people who would find it hard to vote under the SAVE Act are people who should not be voting at all.

Only progressives can find the controversy in that. The rest of America — nearly 90% of the public — rejects noncitizen voting. That hasn’t stopped Democrats from opposing the bill. When the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act earlier this year, just five Democrats voted yes. This time around, the opposition may be unanimous.

Democrats insist that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote. That’s true. But it is also against the law for anyone to enter the country illegally, and that has not stopped millions — including criminals, rapists and drug traffickers — from crossing our southern border in just the last few years.

Laws only work when they are enforced, and the left has done everything possible to make sure they are not. Liberal lawyers have used the courts to twist federal law into a straitjacket that limits states to simply asking voters to check a box that they are a citizen before registering. When states take action, left-wing groups sue them. Arizonans, for example, had to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend a proof of citizenship law after liberal groups filed suit.

Liberals also claim that noncitizen voting never happens, but there are countless documented examples of noncitizens who have registered and cast votes across the country. This year, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose identified nearly 600 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls, 138 of whom appeared to have cast ballots. Just since 2022, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration has removed more than 6,000 noncitizens from state voter rolls. In Texas, the problem is just as severe: Texas Governor Greg Abbott reported removing “over 6,500 potential noncitizens,” including more than 1,900 with voter history.

Clearly, the left knows noncitizen voting happens. For proof, just look to the past. When congressional Democrats crafted HR1, their signature bill to stage a partisan takeover of elections, they included provisions granting amnesty to noncitizens who illegally vote. Fortunately for our Republic, HR1 failed to pass, but Democrats on Capitol Hill have already made it a top priority next year if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president.

Turning a blind eye to illegal voting is bad enough. What’s worse is that liberal politicians in places like Washington, D.C. and New York are actively pushing for noncitizens to vote. As more cities cave to left-wing activism and allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, there is a growing risk that some noncitizens will slip through the cracks and wind up being given federal ballots. Others can get mistakenly registered due to clerical errors. Refusing to address these problems is an invitation for fraud, but it is also a trap for the unwary. If an unsuspecting noncitizen casts an illegal vote, he is committing a federal crime and could wind up being deported.

Across America, Democrats are fighting to keep it easy for foreigners to register and vote. Even for today’s left, that’s a new low. American elections should be decided by American voters.

Jason Snead is the Executive Director of Honest Elections Project Action.

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