The Department of Homeland Security has identified more than 400 immigrants from Central Asia and elsewhere who crossed into the U.S. over the past three years as “subjects of concern” because they were brought in by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network, three officials said. from USA to NBC News. .
Although more than 150 of them have been arrested, the whereabouts of more than 50 remain unknown, authorities said, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to arrest them on immigration charges when they are located.
One of the US officials said that people affiliated with ISIS are operating as human smugglers in Central Asia and helping people leave their countries and travel to the West, where they are then smuggled into the US. ISIS activity or whether ISIS members are making personal money through people smuggling, the U.S. official said.
The official added that the US has no indication that the more than 400 migrants brought to the US by the network have plans to commit terrorism in the US, but immigration agents seek to arrest them with great caution.
“In this case, it was information that suggested a potential link to ISIS because of some of the individuals involved in the [smuggling migrants to the border] this has led us to want to take extra care,” said a senior Biden administration official, “and out of an abundance of caution, make sure that we exercise our authority in the broadest and most appropriate way to mitigate the risk due to this potential connection being made.” ”
The official added that since ICE began arresting migrants brought to the US by the ISIS-linked smuggling group several months ago, no information has emerged linking them to a threat to the US homeland.
Many of the more than 400 migrants crossed the southern border and were released into the U.S. by Customs and Border Protection because they were not on the government’s terrorism watch list, according to the three officials, and the agency did not have information that raised concerns. in season. .
But recent terrorist attacks in Russia have heightened concern about ISIS and its offshoot ISIS-K. In recent months, DHS has been taking a closer look at migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Russia, countries where ISIS-K has been active.
“The fact that his whereabouts are unknown is clearly alarming,” said former FBI counterterrorism section chief Christopher O’Leary, who now works at the security consulting firm The Soufan Group.
O’Leary said ICE is likely trying to make these arrests to arrest people who could pose a threat to national security, even when there is no evidence they are planning an attack.
“I believe that [U.S.] is struggling to locate these individuals and using immigration fees is not uncommon,” O’Leary said. “They are violating this law. And if you need to get someone off the street, that’s a good approach.”
Thousands of migrants from those countries are already inside the US awaiting court decisions on whether they can remain.
Two officials said federal law enforcement agencies are “not panicking” about the people now identified as “subjects of concern” but are prioritizing their arrest on immigration charges out of an abundance of caution.
Some of the 150 who were arrested have already been deported, authorities said. The whereabouts of other people in 17 states are known and they could soon be arrested. Other migrants may have already left the US voluntarily.
Some of those detained or deported so far have been accused of immigration violations. None were charged with terrorism-related crimes.
After the initial publication of this story, several Republicans, including the Trump campaign, responded to NBC News reports blaming the Biden administration for the entry of migrants through the ISIS-linked network.
“There is literally no one President Biden will not reject – including illegal aliens from troubled countries smuggled through networks linked to ISIS,” said Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Earlier this month, ICE arrested eight Tajik men in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles on suspicion of affiliation with ISIS. Two U.S. officials told NBC News that the Tajik men did not enter the country through the same ISIS-affiliated network responsible for bringing more than 400 migrants to the U.S.
NBC News was first to report the similar arrest of an Uzbek man in Baltimore, whose home country warned the U.S. that he was affiliated with ISIS. He was arrested in April after living in the US for more than two years, two US officials said. At the time he entered the US, there were no indications that he had any connection to terrorism.
Counterterrorism officials say the threat of terrorism from migrants crossing U.S. borders has been historically low. Since October, the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada that authorities identified with names on the terrorism watch list represented 0.014% of all CBP encounters, or just under one in every 7,000 vetted migrants, according to CBP data.
Recently, however, some current and former US officials have been sounding the alarm that US border screening needs to be improved for the sake of national security. They point to an increase in immigration from countries such as Venezuela, China and the entire Eastern Hemisphere, which do not routinely share police information and criminal data with the US, as a cause for concern.
NBC News reported in April that an Afghan man named Mohammad Kharwin, 48, whose name was on the U.S. terrorist watch list, was released by CBP because he did not have enough information at the time he crossed. He spent almost a year in the US before being arrested in San Antonio in February. He was released on bond again after a court hearing and arrested again hours after NBC News published a story about his case.
The DHS Office of Inspector General recently described problems with screening at the U.S. southern border, saying in a report: “Department of Homeland Security technology, procedures, and coordination have not been fully effective in screening and vetting non-citizens who apply admission to the United States. States.”
In a letter to DHS on Monday, the Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee asked for the unredacted version of the Inspector General’s report to “assess DHS’s handling of this important national security issue.” ”.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
