Amid ongoing concerns about a porous southern border and an estimate that 30,000 border crossers last year were from “countries of terrorist concern,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is calling on the Department of Homeland Security to address the “troubling” matter.
“This weakness along the border continues to raise considerable national security and immigration concerns,” Grassley wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson this week.
Grassley’s letter comes in the wake of a string of reports appearing to indicate that terrorist groups have been operating south of the border, aiming to infiltrate the United States.
“Beginning in 2015, reports surfaced that ISIS was operating training camps in close proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border,” Grassley detailed in his missive. “U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) expressed concern that “it would be relatively easy for those fighters to ‘walk’ north to the U.S. border along the same networks used to traffic drugs and humans.’ In recent months this concern has intensified.”
Of particular concern to the Iowa lawmaker is a recently leaked U.S. Southern Command intelligence report warning that “special interest aliens” are working with smuggling outfits in Latin America and a Southern Command estimate that more than 30,000 border crossers in 2015 were from “countries of terrorist concern.”
Compounding Grassley’s worries is a June report that an Taliban and terrorism-linked Afghan national was arrested in Arizona last fall after being smuggled into the United States via Mexico and released into the United States because he claimed a “credible fear” and was not flagged by the Department’s National Targeting Center’s terror database. Another report found an arrested ISIS operative claiming to have conspirators operating in Mexico.
“In light of these troubling reports, I am extremely concerned about the security of our southern border and possible infiltration by terrorist organizations,” Grassley wrote.
He further pressed DHS on its knowledge of SOUTHCOM’s intelligence report and it’s assessment of the vulnerabilities it found — particularly it’s estimate that “of the total number of aliens crossing the southwestern border between U.S. and Mexico in 2015, more than 30,000 were from countries of terrorist concern.”