DHS is ill-equipped to stop potential terrorists from entering the U.S., a new report finds.
Asylum seekers wait in line at the El Chaparral border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, on June 5. Imagine that hundreds of Tajik migrants from Central Asia enter the United States through a smuggling network that the FBI subsequently discovers might have links to the Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist group.
Some of the migrants are arrested nearly a year after they entered the country, but many still have not been located. In our scenario, the FBI scrambles to find what could be a ticking ISIS-K time bomb. It uses wiretaps and sting operations to locate recent arrivals who may have some connection to the Islamic State spinoff. But it’s playing catch-up. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general reports that the agency lacks the vetting tools it needs to identify and stop migrants with possible terrorist connections at the border.Folks, this isn’t a hypothetical. All of these details are real. Intelligence officials haven’t found evidence of an organized ISIS-K plot against the homeland. But the awful truth is that they don’t know what’s out there. America, with its porous border, is vulnerable to the stream of people who enter the country every day.In early June, the FBI and DHS arrested eight Tajik migrants in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The operation, aided by FBI wiretaps, was first. The paper said that at least one of the suspects had slipped into the country across the Mexico border more than a year ago. Surveillance showed that some of the Tajiks had used “,” according to CNN. “Rather than risk the worst-case scenario of a potential attack, senior US officials decided to move in and have the men apprehended,” CNN reported.Concern about the ISIS-K threat grew earlier this year when the intelligence community received new information that more than 400 Central Asian migrants had entered the United States through a “human smuggling network” potentially connected to ISIS,. Because of what one official told me was “extra caution,” about 150 of these “persons of interest” have been arrested, but about 50 haven’t been located, the network said. This flow of Central Asian migrants is a new headache for DHS. Officials estimate that about 40 people from that region cross into the United States every day, and that there are now “tens of thousands” of undocumented migrants here from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. Most are economic migrants arriving through smuggling networks that operate using social media, cheap travel, transit through layovers in Europe — and then easy entry into the United States. The big gap in the system is that DHS lacks the tools to vet potentially dangerous migrants seeking asylum at border points of entry. It needs more people and resources to query classified databases and use biometric data. Despite the lessons of 9/11, intelligence agencies remain wary about sharing highly classified information without secure facilities, which are lacking at most border posts.A scathing report on the lack of vetting tools was issued June 7 by DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari. “The Department of Homeland Security’s technology, procedures, and coordination were not fully effective to screen and vet noncitizens applying for admission into the United States,” “Until the Department addresses these challenges,” Cuffari continued, “DHS will remain at risk of admitting dangerous persons into the country or enabling asylum seekers who may pose significant threats to public safety and national security to continue to reside in the United States.” DHS did not dispute Cuffari’s findings or his recommendations for improvements. The core problem is that border enforcement has become a political football rather than a law-enforcement and national-security problem. A divided Congress won’t approve the spending DHS needs for additional people and updated systems. And despite athat requires intelligence agencies to share counterterrorism information, DHS “could not access all Federal data necessary to enable complete screening and vetting of noncitizens seeking admission into the United States,” according to the inspector general’s report. DHS doesn’t have the technology to collect biometric data at land crossings, and the Defense Department won’t share all its biometric data, the report found.The asylum backlog is crushing. The DHS report calculated that 54 percent of 762,432 asylum cases filed between 2017 and 2023 weren’t resolved within 180 days, with some taking up to five years to adjudicate. Among the stalled asylum cases, 620 involved “potential national security concerns,” the report said.A solid, well-policed border is an essential condition of public safety. I pray that Biden doesn’t find out in the next few months just how dangerous our lack of bipartisan border policy could be.
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