OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed several executive orders overturning former President Donald Trump’s strict immigration and border enforcement policies, which critics blame for an influx of perhaps more than 10 million illegal migrants into the country in the years since.
Now, a growing chorus of lawmakers, as well as U.S. national security and law enforcement personnel, are sounding the alarm that such “open border” policies are creating opportunities for some very bad people to enter the country as well.
That includes FBI Director Christopher Wray and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and someone who is reportedly being vetted as a ‘finalist’ on Trump’s shortened list of potential running mates.
“Director Wray, we know that over the last three years, millions of people have crossed the U.S. border illegally, and many have been released into the country. Have people with ties to dangerous gangs – like, for example, the prison gang Tren de Aragua from Venezuela – were they among the people that came into this country?” Rubio asked Wray during an Intel Committee hearing in March.
“I don’t know that I can speak to the specific gang, but certainly, we’ve had dangerous individuals enter the United States of a variety of sorts,” the FBI director responded.
“Are we seeing crimes from people that entered the country over the last three years, some of them with ties to gangs or other criminal organizations?” Rubio pressed.
“I would say this from an FBI perspective: we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border, and that includes drug trafficking. The FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people. That’s just on the fentanyl side. An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs, who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl,” Wray said.
Later in Wray’s testimony, Rubio discussed intelligence, suggesting that terrorist organizations like ISIS were attempting to move operatives into the U.S.
“There are smuggling networks all over the world that specialize in moving people from all over the world, including from the Middle East, Central Asia, and so forth. Are we aware that any of these smuggling organizations are run or conducted by people that have ties, for example, to ISIS or other terrorist organizations?” he asked.
Wray responded: “I want to be a little bit careful about how far I can go in an open session. But there is a particular network where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about, and that we’ve been spending an enormous amount of effort with our partners to investigate. Exactly what that network is up to is something that is, again, the subject of our current investigation.”
The Florida Republican followed up: There is a network we’re concerned about that has facilitators involved in it that have ties to ISIS and other terrorist organizations.” Wray replied: “Correct.”
In a May 20 op-ed posted at FoxNews.com, Rubio expounded on the rising threats due to lax border enforcement under Biden.
“Per the press, illegal Afghan immigrant Mohammad Kharwin was suspected to be on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) terror watch list for being a member of Hezb-e-Islami, a terrorist organization that has killed American service members,” he wrote.
“But when Kharwin crossed the border illegally in March 2023, officials couldn’t verify his identity, so once again, they let a single, military-aged male who had traveled thousands of miles through multiple countries, roam the homeland freely. It took 13 months for law enforcement to confirm his presence on the FBI’s watch list and arrest him,” Rubio continued.
“These examples are disturbing enough, but they are just a drop in the bucket compared to the threat posed by terrorists who have entered the United States and remain undetected,” he said, adding: “Since Biden took office, CBP has recorded more than 9 million encounters with people who have entered the United States illegally, virtually none of whom have been detained or expelled, and the vast majority of whom we know nothing about.”
