According to The Daily Caller, last March, a man was caught crossing the border illegally. After running his name through the terrorist database, they found that he did not match their database and released him into the United States. Earlier this year, the Terrorist Screening Center found that it had made a mistake, and the man was a member of al-Shabaab, a Somali affiliate of al-Qaeda. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested him in Minneapolis, MN, where a large Somali population resides.
For almost a year, a Somali terrorist was on the loose in the United States.
Many terrorists have been caught crossing the border. In the fiscal year 2023 alone, the border patrol caught 172 people on the terror watchlist.
These two facts raise an important concern: Terrorists are trying to enter the United States, and some might be succeeding. Despite all the resources that we have rightly put into counterterrorism, the system is not 100 percent terrorist-proof, and that it is 20 years old means that terrorists are finding ways to get around it. An open border does not protect American citizens – no matter how much you spend on counterterrorism.
It is a story too common that an efficient policy becomes a victim of its success, that the bad guys find new ways around it, while the good guys are under a false sense of security, thinking that because it has worked in the past, it needs no change. In fact, this is how Israel’s successful policy against Gaza failed.
In 1996, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Only five years later, 9/11 happened. Today, the Taliban has been in power for two and a half years, and other terrorist groups are becoming more powerful as the United States is paying less attention to terrorism and more to threats like China and Russia with a homeland security policy that is 20 years old. It should not be a surprise that terrorists are finding ways to bypass the system, especially with the border overwhelmed by illegal immigration.
Joe Biden has been helpful to them. His attempts to end the Remain in Mexico policy—which the courts blocked but ended after he allowed Mexico to cancel it—and mass release of illegal immigrants into the United States have meant that millions have arrived in the country illegally, most of whom we don’t know anything about. Out of these millions, it only takes a few to conduct another 9/11, which itself took only 19 men to execute. Can he assure us that a ring of 19 terrorists has not come to the country on his watch?
It will be more surprising if no terrorist has managed to get around the system and enter illegally than if several have succeeded. For one, we don’t have a list of every single terrorist in the world. Also, we do not catch everybody who crosses the border to match their names with the database.
For the Somali terrorist arrested, it should be a concern about what he was up to during these ten months. Having become a member of the Somali community in Minneapolis, he might have managed to recruit others.
Americans, as well as their elected representatives, must get serious about this crisis. Waiting more than a year to maybe have a Republican administration and get a better deal means that in the time more terrorists might enter illegally and not get caught until they achieve their evil goals. Biden has failed on border security, but so has Congress by not forcing his hand. They should fix the problem immediately, and then, if there is a Republican administration, we can amend the law to make it even better.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
