Recalling 9/11: The cell members that entered the country did so under almost entirely false pretenses, by forging passports from their home country (most were Saudi), lying to border and INS officials, and by easily exploiting U.S. immigration laws. Our checks are much better today, but still far from fool-proof. Terror watch lists are in place and changing every day, but all digital. Biometrics are in place at our ports of entry. Links between foreign identity systems and the U.S. systems are far better. But our southern border has been made incredibly porous since 2021. That brings us to today, seeing the result of the last 3 years.
Did you know …. That in FY 2023, over 2.4 MILLION people were encountered coming into the country across the southern border illegally? Most were released into the country. Some were later found to be on the terror watch lists. Some (not all) have been located and since detained. Since Biden took office we have OVER 6 million people in the country illegally, from the southern border, where enforcement of policies and laws have been set aside, at the direction of Biden, delivered by Mayorkas.
Did you know… That FY 2023 saw over 600,000 KNOWN got-aways across the border? CBP estimates the total number is over 1.5 million since Biden took office.
Did you know… The CBP has encountered over 282 (as of a week ago) people on the terror watchlist, trying to make entry across the border, since Biden took office? We have people from over 170 countries coming in … so far.
Let’s put this into perspective. How many terror watchlist people have tried to make entry (that we know of) in the last 7 years across the southern border?
FY 17 – 2
FY 18 – 6
FY 19 – 0
FY 20 – 3
FY 21 – 15
FY 22 – 98
FY 23 – 169
Last week Christopher Wray (FBI Head) testified before Congress that the terror threat is on a “whole new level” (his words) and that the FBI really has NO IDEA who has entered and what their intentions are. At the same time, the White House has said they have “no way of knowing who is actually here”. Yes – both of those quotes are real, direct quotes. THIS is what happens when you have an open border policy, where CBP is instructed to stand down and not enforce Title 8, to not enforce Stay in Mexico and to not patrol, because they are spending more time processing up to 23,000 people per day coming across illegally.
Now we have the Israeli – Hamas war that threatens to spill over. Ukraine – Russia slowly but surely escalating. And Iran proxy-attacking US forces over 28 times (and counting) with our “huge” response of bombing a couple munitions depots. Thank goodness Biden said that fear-instilling word: DON’T. Might as well have been the ever-moving Obama “red line in the sand”. Make absolutely zero mistake about the current international climate: It is almost entirely due to very, very poor and ill-advised policies by this administration. Backed in lockstep by democrats who want to “back their guy” – even when the decisions are admittedly and notably poor. If you beg Iran to re-enter a nuclear deal, and then skip enforcing the sanctions that were crippling them and causing them to have civilian uprisings that were an imminent threat to the Ayatollah and his gang, and they suddenly get cash-flush as China now can buy 85% of their oil since the U.S. is “looking the other way”, what in the world do you … or ANY reasonable person, think would happen next? And, oh by the way, the mid-range missile part of the original JCPOA has now expired – remember several years ago when I outlined that the JCPOA was, in fact, a stupid deal, and was set to expire in a few years? Well, now it is. On schedule. Here we are, just as discussed almost 2 years ago in THIS blog.
While I’ve droned on about the steaming mess of a border policy under this administration, the point this evening is simple: Terror Cells are here. Now. Re-enforced with more people and money. It would be incredibly naïve to think that over 6 million people are just here illegally to be happy and get $1700/mo and a free cell phone, all from the US government.
The 9/11 attacks took a while to plan. We should expect planning for possible US attacks to have moved fast in the last 3 years, and now at light speed since the Hamas attack and the Israeli response. They may happen in a year, a month, or five years. Vigilance should never go away. Law Enforcement has a horrible task in front of them: Try to detect and thwart threats as even more people flow across the border every day.
Not trying to be a doomsayer but this is also a “Captain Obvious” moment for us all. Elections do really matter. What Universities teach (and fail to teach) matters. What students are being fed on Tik Tok has been shown in many cases to be propagandized and dangerous. Especially in the last month, where actually Middle East history is completely unknown, and rhetoric rules the demonstrations.
Food for thought. Dangerous times today. And they did not need to be that way.
