(IntegrityTimes.com) – A group of 21 senators led by Republican North Carolina Senator Ted Budd has written to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding answers after both DHS and Customs and Border Protection personnel failed to spot red flags when vetting eight migrants from Tajikistan with ISIS links.
Despite going through the vetting procedure at the border when seeking the asylum, the eight individuals were released into the United States and roaming the streets before a conjunction of FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement operatives apprehended the suspects. Senior government officials ordered the arrests after a period of surveillance that flagged “derogatory information” in private and online communications.
In the statement Budd accused President Joe Biden of being “derelict in his duty” to defend and protect the US, and stressed that the incident highlighted the security risk linked to the southern border crisis. The senator stressed that such incidents cannot be allowed to happen again, and that the border needs to be properly secured to “stop the chaos”.
Recently a foreign policy expert and former CIA chief warned that the threat of another terrorist attack in the US is imminent. The arrests of the eight suspects follow the Biden administration’s introduction of a new rule in May that, in theory, speeds up the process of blocking asylum and deporting dangerous individuals encountered at the border. Mayorkas stated that the rule would allow the DHS to more efficiently identify and remove individuals posing a national security risk.
When Republicans impeached Mayorkas earlier in 2024 over his handling of the southern border crisis, he claimed that the Democrats are not to blame for a “broken system”. One of the Tajik suspects was discussing bombs in a wiretapped conversation. The letter from the group of senators described this as deeply concerning. The letter noted that the suspect in question, upon his release from custody at the border, was not due a court date until 2025.
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