On June 30, Representatives August Pfluger and Mayra Flores of Texas sent a joint letter to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson demanding a full committee hearing on the skyrocketing border encounters of possible terrorists.
In the letter, the Members detail multiple recent cases of terrorists crossing the southern border and the threat they pose to national security.
The Members point to Isnardo Garcia-Amando, a suspected terrorist who was released into the interior of the U.S. by the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks before he was recaptured, and Shihab Ahmed Shihab, who planned to smuggle other Iraqi nationals across the southern border and assassinate former President George W. Bush.
“These recent stories are unsurprising given the ever-growing security risks at the southern border,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) TSDB encounters between ports of entry of non-U.S. citizens for FY 2017 was two, for FY 2018 it was six, FY 2019 it was three, and FY 2020 it was also three. In FY2021 that number jumped to 16 and from October through May of 2022 USBP encountered 50. We recently learned that in the last month alone, USBP encountered 15 of these individuals.”
The letter also points to the unmanageable increase of known and suspected terrorists crossing the southern border (up to 50 in fiscal year 2022), and the unmanageable number of got-aways evading arrest (over 800,000 since President Biden took office).
“So, my concern is this: what don’t we know – how many watchlisted individuals are possibly getting away?,” the letter said. “It took 19 terrorists to hijack four commercial airliners and murder 2,977 people on September 11, 2001. Thousands more w e r e injured, and we remain haunted by those events to this day. We have been successful in warding off an attack of that magnitude up until now, but these increased encounters on our borders are indicative of a greater threat to come.”
“In the wake of 9/11, the nation was told by former Director George Tenet that “the system was blinking red.” We cannot place ourselves in a similar situation. It is imperative that we hold a hearing to understand the full scope of this threat and take action to prevent any harm from coming to our homeland. Thank you for your consideration and accommodation.”
—Citizen staff report