The U.S. government has rejected revealing the nationalities of people on the FBI's terror watchlist and arrested at the southern border, claiming this could expose "vulnerabilities" within law enforcement and also "tip off" terrorists.
The request was made by Fox News through a Freedom of Information Act request in October last year, with the response coming this week. The request, the outlet said, sought the nationalities of those apprehended between ports of entry, excluding their names and other identifying information. However, the government also cited the people's privacy in rejecting the request.
"(Customs and Border Protection) is committed to protecting the identity of individuals and avoiding divulging information about any individual by either direct or indirect means," CBP told Fox News in a letter.
It also said that releasing such information could reveal investigative techniques used in processing and apprehending terrorists. "It could allow targets to alter their behavior to avoid detection and exploit the gaps in CBP's law enforcement intelligence, as well as compromise national security," reads a passage of the letter.
According to the outlet, there were 172 encounters of people on the terror watchlist between ports of entry during the past fiscal year and more than 560 at ports of entry. So far this FY there have been 98 encounters between ports of entry and 324 at ports of entry.
House Republicans recently published a report saying that 99 unlawful migrants on the terror watchlist were encountered and then let go by the Biden administration between 2021 and 2023.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan published the report on his X account, detailing that the migrants came from 36 different countries, "including places with an active terrorist presence such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen."
"Open-border policies of President Joe Biden and border czar Vice President Kamala Harris have allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States, including terrorist organizations and other bad actors looking to harm Americans," the document begins.
It goes on to link the perceived lack of enforcement to the scenario that led to the September 11 attacks, saying that "more than two decades later, national security experts are again sounding the alarm about the increasing chance of terrorism in the United States due to the Biden-Harris Administration's open-border policies."
Moreover, it claims that government officials "continue to downplay the national security nightmare created by the border crisis," and recounts more recent events regarding the encounter of migrants in the watchlist that were not immediately apprehended or deported.
The document references the encounter of over 400 migrants brought into the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated network and labeled them as "subjects of concern." A recent report showed that about 50 of them remained on the loose by late June,with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents seeking to arrest them on terrorism charges.
150 of them have been arrested, some of them already deported and officials know the whereabouts of 17 more, who could be arrested soon. Others could have left the country voluntarily.
A senior ICE official told NBC News that law enforcement has been arresting migrants tied to the network for months and that there is no information at the moment that suggest they could pose a threat to the U.S. Several of them were released because they were not on the government's terrorism watchlist.
However, authorities did recently arrest arrest eight men from Tajikistan who are suspected of having ties with ISIS. And Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a hearing in early June that he is "worried about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the country after October 7," making reference to the attack by Hamas on Israel which catalyzed a war in the Middle East and sparked turmoil in the U.S. "The threat level has gone up enormously. Every morning, we worry about this question," Garland added.
In that context, the document continues presenting information to support its claims, saying that even though communities "already feel the disastrous effects of the Biden-Harris Administration's immigration policies, the worst could still be yet to come."
"The Biden-Harris Administration continues to prioritize illegal aliens-including hundreds on the terrorist watchlist and many more from terrorist-sympathizing countries, over the safety and security of the American people," concludes the report, which ends with a call to pass a bill that would help secure the border.
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