U.S. Border Patrol transcribed interviews highlight terrorism potential at border
Interview are part of a joint staff report “Crisis at the Border: Reports from the Frontline.”
On Jan. 16, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) released a joint staff report containing transcripts of interviews with nine U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agents from southwest land border sectors.
The report, “Crisis at the Border: Reports from the Frontline,” contains several disturbing accounts such as terror-related threats.
Key takeaways:
Chief Patrol Agents cited strong consequences for illegal entry into the United States as necessary to deter individuals from illegally crossing the southern border.
Chief Patrol Agents explained that the border barrier system, as well as other technologies, are helpful tools that aid agents in their border security mission.
Chief Patrol Agents are concerned with the increase of illegal border crossers from ‘nontraditional’ countries and with an increase of illegal crossers that have a record of potential terrorist ties.
Chief Patrol Agents describe violent Transnational Criminal Organizations as facilitating and benefitting from the increased flow of illegal border crossers.
The introduction of the report drops some startling statistics on border crossing surges.
Between FY 2000-2019, encounters surpassed one million just five times. The highest count was in 2020 with 1,643,679 - not including the estimated number of those who evaded border patrol, sometimes referred to as “gotaways.”
Under President Biden, a staggering record 4,854,663 illegal crossers were encountered by border patrol during 2022 and 2023. The breakdown of those two years includes 2,378,994 encounters were recorded for FY 2022 and 2,475,669 in FY 2023.
The report’s introduction says that in December 2023 alone, there were over 302,000 interactions with “inadmissible aliens.”
Page 25 of the report contains excerpts of testimony concerning illegal border crossers from China and then transitions to crossers with ties to terrorism.
A subsequent question in the transcript notes that Chinese nationals illegally crossing the border has risen “one thousand percent since fiscal ‘22,” and asks Laredo Sector Chief Joel Martinez why he thinks that’s happening.
Martinez responded that he wasn’t sure exactly but did offer that some of the Chinese nationals had turned themselves in but others had evaded border patrol agents.
In questions directed to the San Diego Sector Chief Aaron Heitke regarding illegal entries by illegal border crossers from “countries of concern,” Heitke said they have seen “significantly more” in recent years.
“TSDS” stands for Terrorist Screening Data Set.
During his questioning, Del Rio Sector Chief Jason Owens said they had encountered illegal migrants who later turned out to be terrorist threats.
Martinez also said he is concerned gotaways could be criminals or a terror threat.
The joint report also includes questions on drug and human smuggling with Martinez stating human smugglers can be paid anywhere from $3,000 to to cross the U.S.-Mexico border up to $60,000 for someone coming from China.
Owens also said his sector estimates human smuggling to be “in excess of $30 million a week.”
Just four days after the joint report dropped, a video of illegal migrants surfaced on X with one of the migrants threatening the group filming them.
The video, posted by the account 1st Responders Media, questioned the group of migrant males about where they were from. One male with what seemed to be a Middle Eastern accent responded, “You find out who I am very soon,” and said that the person filming was “Really not smart enough to know who I am.”
Update: Social media posts have called attention that the individual above possibly might be Movsum Samadov, head of the Azerbaijani Islamic Party, a terrorist organization.
Samadov was released from prison on Jan. 19. The video capturing his remarks was published on Jan. 20.
More To The Story
On Jan. 17, another hearing was held on the border crisis unfolding under the Biden Administration.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability’s hearing was titled “The Biden Administration’s Regulatory and Policymaking Efforts to Undermine U.S. Immigration Law.”
“President Biden and his Administration have refused to take any responsibility for a catastrophe they created,” said Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the committee’s chairman. “And now the Biden Administration is doing what it does best—asking taxpayers for more money. But more money isn’t going to solve much on the border. Because what we are seeing isn’t a money problem. It’s a policy problem.”
“President Biden is the first President to ever un-secure a border on purpose,” said hearing witness Mr. Thomas D. Homan, Retired Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Homan added, “For three years, this Administration has directed and overseen the implementation of an open-borders agenda that has resulted in a national security, humanitarian, public health, and public safety catastrophe unlike any we have ever witnessed at America’s borders.”
During the hearing, Homan also said that for context, “All one must do is look at CBP’s own data that shows total enforcement actions in FY20 was approximately 646,000. The next full year under Biden we tripled that number to 1.9 million followed the next year with 2.7 million and then in FY23, 3.2 million.”
“When you have those kinds of encounters, it overwhelms the Border Patrol to the point where they have pulled up to 100% of agents off patrol to come in and process these large groups, which leaves hundreds of miles of border with no security and not a single agent on watch,” said Homan.
Another witness, Mr. Joseph B. Edlow, Former Acting Director and Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said the Biden administration has “waged war against the immigration system of the United States. The results speak for themselves.”
“As each memorandum, regulatory action, or policy decision is announced, the crisis at the southwest border grows exponentially,” said Edlow. “There is a direct correlation between these policies and the exploding number of encounters, the number of known (and unknown) got-aways, and backlogs at both [USCIS] and the immigration courts.”
During her time allotted, North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx asked Edlow, “do you have anything that you would like to add to the comments Mr. Homan has made in conjunction with why we don’t need additional laws and what we can do to make sure the laws that exist are enforced?”
“As Mr. Homan said, the previous Administration used everything that was available whether it be remain in Mexico program,” Edlow responded. “Whether it be the asylum cooperative agreements with Central American partners, whether it be other programs that allowed the U.S. to quickly intake, process in for expedited removal of individuals from certain countries and make sure they had all due process within just a matter of days and make sure they were in front of an immigration judge within a matter of days.”
“What I find kind of amusing is the circumvention of lawful pathways and notice of proposed rulemaking by the Biden Administration noted that there were no alternatives available to what they were proposing, and they noted that, such as an asylum cooperative agreement and remain in Mexico were not viable options because there was no time to negotiate them,” said Edlow. “Why I find that amusing is because the Trump Administration did negotiate them, they were working and the Biden Administration pulled them back, ended them, destroyed them, and now they’re saying, ‘well we don’t have any alternative because we can’t do that.’ It’s just not the way.”
The press release for the hearing includes additional quotes and video clips of statements and questions made by various members of the committee.
The full hearing can be viewed on YouTube:
Even More To The Story
A moment from a separate House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment held on Jan. 18 has gone viral.
The clip features Rep. Dan Goldman (D-CA) and Josephine Dunn, a woman whose daughter died from a fentanyl overdose. Dunn was one of two witnesses, the other was Tammy Nobles.
Nobles’ daughter Kayla Hamilton was autistic. Kayla was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member with an extensive criminal record and who entered the country illegally. Nobles is suing the Department of Homeland Security for the wrongful death of her daughter to the tune of $100 million.
During the exchange, Goldman’s tone is condescending as he attempts to tell Dunn she and Nobles are “being used” and tries to get Dunn to agree that more funding, officers, and “resources” would be solutions.
Dunn disagreed, telling Goldman that “border patrol are being used to make sandwiches and to screen people and let them into our country.”
Goldman takes another pass at the same question about adding more officers and gets a blunt answer.
“I would like the border patrol to be able to do the job they were hired to do,” said Dunn.
As Goldman attempted to interrupt her, Dunn’s voice rose, “Every border patrol officer I have spoken to has told me their hands are tied by this administration and Mr. Mayorkas. I’ve been to the border, Sir. Have you?”
Watch the full exchange below: