America's Talking - Border Crisis Creates National Security Threat for U.S., Observers Say

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

The number of terror suspects captured trying to enter the U.S. illegally has soared since President Joe Biden took office. But with more than 1 million unidentified foreign nationals evading apprehension after entering the U.S., the potential that at least some are on the international terrorist watch list poses a potential major threat to national security and raises the chances of terror attacks, observers warn. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today, as he does every week, is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper. All right, thanks, Casey. Doing good, Dan. How are you? I am doing fine. Thank you. We are recording this on Friday, August 11th. More news and a somewhat scary enterprise piece from you this week, Casey, related to the ongoing border crisis. We know that this fiscal year, the federal fiscal year, starts October 1st and

September 30th, that through the first nine months of this fiscal year, at least 525 known or suspected terrorists were apprehended by border agents at both the northern and southern border as they tried to illegally enter the country. What we don't know about, we've been talking about and reporting at thecenter square.com about what the feds called gotaways, those who illegally enter the country, but there's no agents there to apprehend them. They're spotted by the feds, but they successfully make it into the United States and disappear. What we don't know is how many of those gotaways, and there's been well over a million of them since President Biden took office, How many of them are on the terror watch list?

You talked to some national security experts, Casey, and they said that could be a problem. Tell us about that. Yeah, I mean, the border is in total chaos, total crisis right now, and people are taking advantage of it. We've talked a lot about at the Soonersquare.com and on this podcast about how the cartels regularly take advantage of the chaos, you know, shipping in huge amounts of fentanyl, which is a big reason that overdoses are, are basically at all-time high in this country in recent years. They're also taking advantage of it with human trafficking, which has become really popularized and more in the national mind

because of that, you know, like the sound of freedom movie and other things that have gone on, you know, all the children who are trafficked and just lost track of kids just walking across the border. So it's total chaos at the border. So much of law enforcement's hands are tied behind their back or they don't have the resources because of a lot of political, in fighting. There's no signs in Congress of anything actually changing on this. And that's just a signal to those who are trying to come across illegally, both the southern. And I will say the northern border,

too, Dan. You made this point the other day. But the northern border is also a big target for terror groups. And I'll let you maybe get into that more. But there's hundreds of people who are suspected terrorists coming across just that we know about. And, you know, I talked to these national security experts. And they said, you know, they pointed out one of the most seemingly maybe obvious, but potent things that was pointed out was it only took a small team of a handful of people to pull off 9-11. You know, there wasn't, this wasn't like hundreds of people operation to pull off 9-11. It was a small, um, focused team that did that. There's been other, you know, terror attacks in the U.S. of course. I think it was just 19 people that carried out 9-11.

Um, and so when you're talking about hundreds of people and we don't even know when, this, This one expert, Laura Rice, who used to work for Department of Homeland Security, she was the acting deputy, chief of staff. So she knows these issues. She talked about this, the idea of a terrorist attack because of the border as more of less of an if and more of a win. When are we going to pay the price for that? Basically, it's almost inevitable.

And so it is a scary picture. The experts I talked to just said, you know, of course, this is a problem. And, you know, remember, Dan, part of the whole premise for going to the Middle East for these wars is, and what I remember being told was, well, we'd rather fight the terrorists over there than fight them on our own turf. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was kind of the whole premise. But now here we have, you know, maybe terrorists of a different kind or terrorist suspects of a different kind coming across the border every day.

Yeah, that's certainly scary. It should be a big homeland security priority. yet the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Mayoricus, the Biden administration themselves, just bluntly say the border is secure, the border is closed. But the people on the front lines, including Border Patrol agents who have talked to the Center Square without being IDed because the Biden administration tells them they are not allowed to talk to the media themselves, but we have some sources within Border Patrol who will talk to us. They say there's no way the border is closed or the border is secure.

They see on the front lines what's going on at the border. And this is a very real national security concern. When 525 known or suspected terrorists apprehended that we know about, even if it's just a very small percentage of that, 1%, let's just, say of terrorists, known or suspected terrorists who got through the border without being apprehended. That should be a concern. Texas, Casey, has of course been, has the largest border with Mexico in the U.S., has been on the front lines of the border crisis since President Biden took office. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas launched Operation Lone Star back in

which is Texas's border security efforts. Yet the Biden administration seems to try and thwart Governor Abbott's and Texas's efforts to secure the border. The Biden administration last month filed suit against the state of Texas over these buoys, these barriers that they put on the Rio Grande River to try and deter people from walking. Of course, it's a very shallow river. particularly in certain spots. There's been plenty of video of migrants crossing the river from Mexico, walking across the river because it's that shallow, into the United States. Texas put efforts to put barriers up to block people from doing that.

The federal government filed suit saying that those are international waters. It's the federal government's responsibility. It's not Texas's responsibility. And then just this week, the EPA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, came out with rules saying there's endangered species in the river. And so Texas can't interfere with that, certain muscles that are endangered. So the federal government is, Texas has stepped up to try and secure the border. but the federal government's been pushing back against those efforts. Dan, is there anything more delicious than a muscle straight from the Rio Grande River?

I can't say as I've ever had one, Casey. Right. Oh, man, this is, I mean, I'm sure it's a complex issue with EPA, and I have no doubt there are muscles in the river. But this is a kind of like political gridlock that I was referring to at the beginning. It's not enough for either side to really win. it's just enough to keep the issue from having a permanent solution, right? So it's not as if there's actually muscles are there's going to be some concerted effort to actually save these muscles probably. It's just enough to keep this temporary structure from being built.

And it's not as if Texas efforts are really going to be enough to stop the border crisis, but it is going to maybe help slow it down a little bit. So the political situation is totally gridlocked this. Now, the only thing I think that has hope of changing the political situation, is the fact that many northern states are starting to complain about the immigration now, which is such an interesting thing. I mean, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but on the podcast, but many of these cities that were self-proclaimed sanctuary cities are complaining about the number of migrants.

Now, some of that is because migrants were bused to their cities by, you know, southwestern border state governors. And some of that is just because they're really destination spots for, for these migrants. And so, you know, I think that's the only thing. Right now this is really a border states that are really worried versus the rest of the country, which is kind of apathetic issue. I think the only way for anything to change is when everyone sort of has a vested personal interest in doing something about the problem. So, yeah, we did talk about a couple weeks ago about, for example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declaring a state of emergency, actually creating pamphlets that were shipped down to the border being handed to migrants saying,

Don't come to New York City. We don't have any resources left. We don't have any space to shelter you, et cetera. But the latest development in the past week, the Massachusetts Democratic governor declared a state of emergency because of the migrant crisis in their state. So this Massachusetts. In Massachusetts.

Yeah, Massachusetts, I don't know how well. I know you're not very good at geography, Casey. No. So I'll just explain it to you. They're not at the southern border, okay? Oh, okay. All right. We will continue to write about what's going on at the,

border and what the national security threats are at the center square.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKalib. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.