illegal immigration
US can stop border-crossing terrorists with – Obama administration policies?
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 Bensman as published June 12, 2024 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 agents arrested six Tajikistani nationals on terrorism charges 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 was convicted and sentenced in California 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 Mexico staged a vehicle ramming attack on Marine Corps Base Quantico that all involved federal agencies refuse to publicly rule out as a terror incident.
This year, Border Patrol agents overrun by the mass migration crisis have accidentally released at least seven immigrants who were on the FBI’s terrorism watch list when they illegally crossed the southern border, according to multiple reports, sparking frantic manhunts to capture them.
That’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 — 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 a surprisingly anxious Foreign Affairs magazine essay 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 Obama’s secretary of homeland security.
In 2016, during his final months in office, Johnson became a true believer in the threat posed by “special interest aliens,” 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 a memorandum to his top deputies demanding their “immediate attention” to “the increased global movement of SIAs.”
He ordered the formation of a “multi-DHS Component SIA Joint Action Group” that would assess the entire program and create a tightly coordinated international action plan to “counter the threats posed by the smuggling of SIAs.”
“I want to ensure we are bringing the full resources of the Department to bear in a coordinated manner on the issue of SIAs,” he wrote, to build on existing counter-SIA programs.
Johnson’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 Trump’s presidency.
His intended revamp never happened — 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 unimaginable 70,000 to 80,000 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.
“Due to massive numbers of illegal aliens overwhelming CBP, in-depth face-to-face interviews are nonexistent,” former Chief Border Patrol Agent Rodney Scott testified 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 Johnson’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 — no matter how many SIAs arrive.
If Johnson’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 “America’s Covert Border War” (2021).
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday designating the city as a “sanctuary city” following President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.
This measure prevents the use of local resources for immigration enforcement and prohibits city agencies from sharing information about undocumented residents with federal immigration authorities, according to The Associated Press. The council voted unanimously, aligning Los Angeles with numerous cities across the U.S. that have adopted similar policies.
The ordinance will undergo a second council vote for procedural reasons as Mayor Karen Bass, who has expressed support for the initiative, holds veto power but is unlikely to use it, AP reported. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez pointed out the city’s firm stance against cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
🚨 President-Elect Trump has named Tom Homan as Border Czar. pic.twitter.com/XNfp4to0Ev
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 11, 2024
“We’re going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way,” Soto-Martinez said. “We want people to feel protected and be able to have faith in their government and that women can report domestic violence crimes.”
Soto-Martinez also noted that many immigrants without legal status are integral to the community, working in roles such as housekeepers, nannies, and cooks, AP reported. While the ordinance highlights the city’s values, critics argue that Los Angeles already refrains from cooperating with federal immigration agencies, suggesting the policy may not bring significant operational changes.
Trump announced that former acting ICE Director Tom Homan will take on the role of border czar in his upcoming administration. Homan will oversee border operations, including deportations, security at land and sea entry points, and aviation safety measures.
Trump revealed Monday that he plans to declare a national emergency and deploy military resources to execute his mass deportation agenda. He confirmed reports from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who claimed the administration is ready to use emergency powers to address what he called the “Biden invasion.”
Daily Caller
“I know three families that have gone to Canada.”: Locals Say Haitians Are Hoofing It Out Of Springfield After Trump Win
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
‘They Are Afraid’
Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio appear to be fleeing the city in droves after President-elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the election, according to reports from locals.
The national spotlight shined on Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000 residents nestled in central Ohio, for weeks following unverified viral online claims that Haitians migrants had been spotted butchering a pet for consumption. The subsequent uproar about Springfield sparked further media debate about mass migration and its consequences, as Springfield has been dealing with an influx of Haitian migrants in a relatively short amount of time.
“The traffic situation seems to be better now,” longtime resident Barron Seelig said to the Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to widespread accounts from city residents in past months that Haitian drivers are causing mayhem on the roads.
While Seelig did speak about local rumors of impending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids possibly scaring Haitians away, he also mentioned recent crackdowns by highway patrol officers and added that some migrants are leaving because they don’t enjoy the Ohio winters. Another Springfield local told the DCNF that he heard it was virtually impossible to rent a U-Haul truck because so many Haitians are currently renting them — presumably to leave town.
Those who provide services to immigrant services in the city have also said that Trump’s election victory has prompted Haitians to flee en masse.
“Some folks don’t have credit cards or access to the internet, and they want to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket, so we help them book a flight,” Margery Koveleski, who helps Haitian migrants manage government bureaucracy, told The Guardian. “People are leaving.”
“People are fully aware of the election result, and that is why they are leaving; they are afraid of a mass deportation” Jason Payen, a co-founder of the Haitian Community Alliance, said to the Guardian.
“Several of my customers have left. One guy with his family went to New Jersey; others have gone to Boston,” Payen continued. “I know three families that have gone to Canada.”
Trump, for his part, has vowed to embark on a border enforcement agenda that will apply to the entire country.
During the campaign, Trump pledged to continue building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, revive the Remain in Mexico program, hire more border patrol agents and conduct the “largest deportation program in American history,” and end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil to illegal migrant parents.
Trump said in October that he would revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals and “bring them back” to the country. The Biden-Harris administration has provided TPS — which temporarily gives deportation protections to its designees — to hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals currently living in the U.S.
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