The “staggering” number of people illegally crossing the US-Mexico border poses a “significant security issue” that can be exploited by terrorists, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday.
Wray repeatedly expressed concern about the border crisis at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, despite other members of the Biden administration insisting the border situation is under control.
“I certainly know that it is an eclectic mix of nationalities and the volume is just staggering,” Wray told Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Cornyn followed up, “And that’s a public security threat, you agree with me?”
“To me it represents a significant security issue and represents a wide array of criminal threats that flow out of it,” Wray confessed.
The number of Border Patrol busts in the 2022 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, has already surpassed 1.6 million, according to official figures.
The year’s tally is poised to soar past last year’s record of nearly 1.7 million encounters. The figures do not include the number of people able to evade authorities.
The astonishing number of Border Patrol busts also includes at least 50 people whose names appeared on federal terrorism watchlists between November and May, according to previous reporting.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) raised to Wray their concern about terrorists crossing the border alongside illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
“We’re constantly sharing watch-listing information with DHS and with our partners to improve border security in that regard,” Wray told Blackburn.
“Do we have operational control of the southern border regarding counterterrorism threats that would lead you to conclude the border is secure?” Graham pressed Wray in a subsequent exchange.
“Well, let me answer that this way,” Wray replied. “While on the one hand, we don’t have — so I don’t want to mislead people — any imminent credible threat from a foreign terrorist organization on the border at the moment, any port of entry, any potential vulnerability is something we know foreign terrorist organizations and others will seek to exploit.”
Wray added: “You only have to look at the case that we charged pretty recently involving an individual trying to smuggle nationals into the US to kill former President Bush to be reminded that it’s something we need to take deathly seriously.”
“How easy would it be for a group of terrorists to intermingle themselves in this wave of illegal immigrants and be able to sneak into our country to kill a bunch of us?” Graham followed up
“I don’t want to give them a road map, but it’s certainly something we’re concerned about,” Wray responded.
The FBI chief’s remarks are likely to fuel even more criticism of Biden’s management of the southern border from both sides of the aisle.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) previously blasted the president for listening to “activists” instead of locals experiencing the crisis.
“The bottom line is I supported Joe Biden for president. He was the most centrist candidate running but the problem, in my opinion, is that he has surrounded himself, at least on the immigration issue, with people that have backgrounds in — I would call them immigration activists — and they’re giving their perspective and the problem is that’s only one perspective,” Cuellar seethed during an appearance on the Fox News podcast “The Brian Kilmeade Show” in October.
“What about the perspective of the border communities?” the Texas congressman added.
Meanwhile, Republican-led states are continuing to battle the Biden administration over how to stem the flow of illegal migrants.
In a major upset for the GOP, the Supreme Court in June allowed Biden to end the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
There is also an ongoing court battle over the fate of Title 42, a COVID-19-era policy that allows officials to swiftly deport most border-crossers in the name of public health.
A federal judge in Louisiana in May ordered the Biden administration to halt plans to lift the policy in June, which was anticipated to cause a renewed rush to the border. Still, the Biden administration has relaxed the use of Title 42.
Officials began to allow unaccompanied children who cross the border to remain in the US shortly after the president took office, which then soon extended to family units.
Recent footage of migrants released at the border shows single men also allowed to remain while awaiting court dates.
The surge has forced the Biden administration to complete sections of former President Donald Trump’s border wall in western Arizona — despite Biden’s prior vows not to do so.
Republicans argue that Biden’s policies are to blame for that crisis — a stance that is shared by Guatemala’s president and Mexico’s president.
Biden was vice president to former President Barack Obama — called the “Deporter in Chief” by immigration advocates — but campaigned on welcoming asylum-seekers and called on Congress to legalize most illegal immigrants already in the US.
