House Republicans demand probe of hundreds of terror watchlist migrants entering US
Three House Republicans are demanding a federal probe of reports that hundreds of migrants flagged on the terror watchli﷽st have entered the US﷽ — and want to know where the new arrivals are now.
The members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Homeland Security Committee asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a Tuesday letter exclusively obtained by The Post to identify migrants from the Terrorist 🍌Screening Data Set who are trying to come into the country at and between ports of entry — and those who have already been released into the US.
Intel Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Intel member French Hill (R-Ark.) and Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told GAO comptroller general Gene Dodaro to open an investigation after the FBI and othe♉r intell🅰igence agencies failed to provide answers.
The letter questions how many known suspected terrorists — and their associates or family memb🐻ers — were encountered at the Mexico border and later permitted to enter the US.
It also asks about the policies and procedures that the FBI and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) use to flag mig൲rants on the terror watchlist, and whether the bureau surveils them after they come into the country.
“We also request that your report evaluate the above described CBP and FBI activities under🎃 existing authorities,” the Republicans said.
“For any identified shortfalls in such authorities🐎, we further request that you develop and recommend possible legislative remedies ♎aimed at mitigating the resulting national security risks,” they added.
In fiscal year 2023, federal authorities encountered 169 people on the༺ terror 𒊎watchlist between ports of entry and 80 at ports of entry on the southern border, according to .
Nearly 100 have already been flaไgged at and between ports of entry at the southern border since Oct. 1.
Another 630 terror suspects were encountere൲d at the northern border in both fiscal years 🤡combined.
But those numbers only account for the known suspects who have entered or subsequently been removed, Hi🐽ll noted during a March threat assessment hearing, adding that he and other lawmakers s💙till did not know the status of the 169 encountered on the southern border.
“We don’t have any idea of how many people have crossed t💃he border with this❀ chaos of 7 million encounters,” he said, citing the total number of apprehensions on the US-Mexico border since President Biden took office.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed earlier this year that a Somali national who was a member of the terror group al Shabaab was let into the country after꧟ first being arrested in California in March 2023.
The Terrorist Screening Center initially deemed him a “misℱmatch” — despite being connected to the use, manufacture or transportation of explosives or firearms — and took a year to discover its error and re-arrest him.
Hill to the case and said the 27-year-old terror suspect “wasn’t really apprehended or known about until he used his real i🌺dentity docu🥃ments to try to get a job,” citing January testimony from ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner.
The Arkansas Republican asked FBI Director Christopher Wray during t🅺he𝕴 threat hearing whether FBI field offices nationwide were notified of terror suspects and other persons put on no-fly lists.
“The way�ﷺ� the system works, they should be,” Wray said. “I can’t tell you that it’s happened in every instance.”
Wray added that the “bigger concern” are migrants who present “fake 🐻documents” leaving authorities with no “bi🦂ometrics, fingerprints or otherwise to match them against.”
Hill pointed out that Border Patrol processed 6,000 people in a single day on the southern border with “no documentation process” during a January trip when he and dozens of other members of Congress observed the scene at Eagle Pa🧸ss, Texas.
“No biometrics, no photo, no interview, no run against th𒈔e list, no checking of documents,” he said. “They just passed them through 🐠into the US.”
“Theꦑ American people are saying, ‘Where are they?’” he added, earning a commitment from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to provide the information.
Other terror suspects have been deported after their initial arrests at the border, including one member of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah whoꦅ admitted to Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas, that he was planning to head to New York an𝐆d was trying “to make a bomb.”