The chairmen of two top House committees are blasting the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over a lack of answers after the release of an alarming report on potential terror threats at the border.
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., were responding to findings by the House Judiciary Committee that nearly 100 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list were released into the country during the Biden administration.
"It’s unacceptable that the Biden-Harris Administration has left our southern border open and that they don’t know who is coming into our country or where they are once here – including potential terrorists," Turner and Green said in a joint statement.
The two Republican lawmakers wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in April asking about what, if any, processes were in place to detect individuals on the terror watch list trying to cross the U.S. border and finding where they are if released.
"The FBI and DHS have yet to answer these most basic questions," they said.
"Since the Biden-Harris Administration’s failed open border policies have welcomed potential terrorists into our nation, we’re working to combat these threats and safeguard Americans in their own backyards. The FBI and DHS must answer our requests."
The FBI declined to comment on the statement. Fox News Digital also reached out to DHS for comment.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has himself warned about potential terror threats emanating from the southwestern border in multiple public congressional hearings.
He told the House Judiciary Committee recently, "I have warned for some time now about the threat that foreign terrorists may seek to exploit our southwest border or some other port of entry to advance a plot against Americans. Just last month, for instance, the Bureau and our joint terrorism task forces worked with ICE in multiple cities across the country as several individuals with suspected international terrorist ties were arrested using ICE’s immigration authorities."
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"Leading up to those arrests, hundreds of FBI employees dedicated countless hours to understand the threat and identify additional individuals of concern," Wray said. "As concerning as the known or suspected terrorists encountered at the border are, perhaps even more concerning are those we do not yet know about because they provided fake documents or because we didn’t have information connecting them to terrorism at the time they arrived in the United States."
The report, released earlier this week and obtained first by Fox News Digital, claimed that at least 99 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list were released into the U.S. by DHS after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border between fiscal years 2021 and 2023.
At least 34 others are in DHS custody but have not yet been removed from the U.S., the report said.
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The staff interim report also found that immigration judges granted bond to at least 27 migrants on the watchlist who entered illegally, and that Border Patrol has encountered tens of thousands of migrants from countries that could present national security risks – including 2,134 Afghan nationals, 33,347 Chinese nationals, 541 Iranian nationals, 520 Syrian nationals, and 3,104 Uzbek nationals.
"That does not include the untold numbers of potential terrorists that evaded Border Patrol to enter the United States as part of nearly 2 million ‘gotaways’ since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration," the report says.
The report, citing information provided to committee staff in June, also found that Border Patrol had encountered migrants on the terror watchlist from 36 different countries – including places with active terror presences. Those countries include Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan and Yemen.
