CNN reported on Aug. 30 that a smuggler affiliated with ISIS helped several migrants cross the US-Mexico border earlier in the year, prompting Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and others to question the Biden Administration's approach to the ongoing border crisis.
According to CNN, the FBI is investigating migrants from Uzbekistan and other countries who entered the US via the southern border with Mexico after it was discovered that they had ties to an ISIS-affiliated smuggler. Adrienne Watson of the National Security Council said that they are working on identifying the migrants, although the FBI said it has not found an ISIS scheme as of yet.
The FBI learned only after the migrants had entered the country of a human trafficking organization with at least one member who was connected with ISIS, CNN reported. Since then, officials at the border have been speeding up the process of removing individuals who match the description of migrants attached to this group.
The article said that this news caused such a stir that classified information was being circulated among President Biden’s cabinet and that numerous security meetings were held. Some counterterrorism officials said this incident shows just how vulnerable the US is to terrorists entering the country, CNN said.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reposted the CNN article on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, and said, “Why doesn’t the Biden administration care about the disaster at the southern border?”
A Washington Examiner article from earlier in the year reported that as of June 20, there had already been 127 individuals on the FBI Terror Watchlist who had been apprehended at the border in FY 2023.
The CNN article said that these statistics, as well as the more than 183,000 migrants who entered the US via the southern border in July alone, represent only a fraction of the total. In recent years, migrants from over 150 different countries have entered the U.S., CNN said.
"The episode sits squarely at the nexus of two of the thorniest and most politically fraught security challenges facing the Biden administration: terrorism and the border," the CNN article said.
