America's Talking - House Leaders Demand Answers From Mayorkas on Terrorists Being Released Into Us

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security are demanding answers from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after learning that Border Patrol agents are releasing known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) into the country. The demand comes after Republican members led the charge to impeach Mayorkas in February and after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress expressing concerns about those illegally entering the U.S. with ties to the terrorist group ISIS. Full Story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_24207312-f2b7-11ee-9fd7-df016d720a58.html 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 McAulb, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, April 5th. Concerns about the border crisis ramped up again this week, with Republican members of Congress demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security about known or suspected terrorists being released into the U.S. and revelations that the number of Chinese foreign nationals

who illegally cross the U.S. border has skyrocketed under President Joe Biden's administration. Joining me to discuss the latest is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Puro Chief for the Center Square. Casey, let's start with the demand from House Republicans. We've known since day one, the Biden administration, that he was unilaterally changing U.S. border policy to allow more people into the country. But terrorists? Yeah, terrorists, among other things, Dan. I mean, that's the natural follow-up to, you know, hey, we have millions of people coming into the country illegally. Well, the next question is, okay, who are they?

And it turns out the answer is either we don't know because, you know, they were released or we never actually capture them and they just came in. We just know we have some video footage of them coming in, but they were never stopped. Or, you know, we know, and the answer is not too good. because under the Biden administration, the basically deportation, basically what it takes to get deported is a much lower standard now. And we know from federal data that we have actually had hundreds of known or suspected terrorists coming across not just a southern border, but also the northern border, actually, which is interesting. And those are just the ones we know about. So we know for a fact we've had hundreds of terrorists trying to come into the country in the last few years. we don't know how many hundreds or thousands were able to, who came in and they have terrorist ties, but we don't know.

And of course, we don't even know who came in the country. They're called gotaways, as you know, people who, you know, maybe a border patrol agent sees, you know, three or four guys. And he chases them. They get across the border. They duck and dive and they're able to evade border patrol. Well, that would be three godaways. We have no idea who those guys are, who they know, why they're coming, what their plan is, what their connection is, where they armed, were they part of the cartels, where they connected to something even worse. worse, maybe something in El Salvador or Middle East or elsewhere. We just don't know. But we just mark those down. And it turns out that kind of person, those three guys who get in and that scenario I just laid out, there's millions of those in recent years. It's not just a couple dozen. It's in the millions. And so that's a really concerning statistic too.

So House Republicans are raising concerns about this. Of course, Mayorkas is already facing impeachment with House Republicans calling for an impeachment trial this month from the Senate. I think that's unlikely, but they're pushing for it. And they're pointing at these numbers, record numbers of illegal immigration. Are these people terrorists? Of course, the fentanyl is bad. There's also questions about not just terrorists or terrorists connected, but people coming from countries that are adversarial to us, places like China, which we could be a war with

any day because of an invasion of Taiwan. So there's a lot of factors to this. And when you ask the question, well, Dan, who are these people? Sometimes the answer is we don't know and sometimes the answer is not a good one. Yeah, and the House Republican sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security this week, whose leader, of course, as you mentioned, is Mayorkas who they've impeached already because of the ongoing border of crisis. But in this letter, they cite several examples of known or suspected terrorists who have been in the country and apprehended by border agents after they've been in the country for a while. One includes a Somali man who's a member of the terrorist group El Shabab. He was caught and released by Border Patrol agents in California in March 2023, according to their data.

Another includes a Lebanese man with ties to the Iranian-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah. He was apprehended between ports of entry in March 2024, reportedly told federal agencies he planned to travel to New York and make a bomb. And then there's the revelation that, more than 140,000 Chinese nationals, citizens of China, an adversary, major adversary of the U.S., who have illegally entered the country since fiscal 2021. They're raising concerns. We don't know who these people are. Some of them may be tied to terrorist groups.

FBI Director Ray several months ago testified before Congress that they are concerned about the possibility of a terrorist attack. Thoughts? Yeah, I mean, and so everything you said may have sounded like some kind of conspiracy theory or conservative craziness a few years ago, but we have dated back all the things that you just said. You know, the Biden administration of others have really pushed back and said, oh, we don't catch and release people like that. That's overblown. But you just provided a great example.

Border Patrol will actually catch someone and then not deport them or put them back in, you know, Mexico or wherever or put them on a plane home. They just released them into the U.S. and tell them, hey, come back in, you know, three years for a court date. And of course, they don't come back. And that's a very common process. That is not a one-off. That's not the exception. That is very common. And so people know coming across that if they get caught, they're probably a good chance they'll just get processed and released anyway, even if they do get caught. And so that's why you see such a huge influx of migrants right now because of those border

patrol policies. And this is kind of what House Republicans are talking about when they say Biden's not enforcing the border. And Biden asked for more money. And they say, you don't need more money. You need to just actually deal with the people you're catching. You need to actually stop people. You need to turn border patrol agents into people who stop people from coming into the country, not who just do the paperwork when they arrive. So that's kind of where you're getting a lot of this Republican rhetoric. And to be clear, you know, and I don't think you're saying this. I don't think people will hear it. But we're not saying the majority of migrants are terrorists or all these migrants are evil or terrorists or criminals. But when you have millions and millions, coming in, if only half of 1% are criminals or terrorists, that's, you know, thousands and thousands of thousands of people coming into the country that are very dangerous, right? And of course, the percentage just, you know, demographically is probably higher, at least with crime. So you don't have to, you can, you can say there are a lot of terrorists coming in the country and that there is a lot of violent criminals coming into the country without saying all migrants

are that way because there's so many coming in that just statistically there have to, to be some really dangerous people coming across the border. So this issue has gotten so big that it's, it's bigger than race. It's bigger than just the normal political lines that we're seeing that, Dan, and how some Democrats are defecting and Democratic mayors are getting very upset about this issue. You're seeing some Democratic lawmakers saying, hey, Biden needs to do something about the border. We want to do something about the border. But I think in the minds of voters, it's too little, too late in an election year. But they'll be the judge come November. Casey, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep

up with the ongoing border stories at the center square.com.