House committee subpoenas Mayorkas over terrorist data; more than 1,700 known or suspected terrorists apprehended at border since 2021

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn. subpoenaed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday seeking information he and other House Republicans have requested for over a year about the record number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) illegally entering the U.S.

The subpoena follows several unanswered requests previously made by Green and the Republican chairs of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees. They and others have expressed concerns about the skyrocketing number of KSTs who’ve been apprehended after attempting to evade capture between the ports of entry at the Southwest border under the Biden administration.

If they hadn’t been apprehended, they’d be among the more than two million gotaways who illegally entered the U.S. since the president’s been in office. Gotaways is the official CBP term that refers to foreign nationals who evade capture after illegally entering the U.S. The number is a “best guess,” law enforcement officials have explained to The Center Square, and is underreported by between 10% and 20%. DHS and other officials have no idea who the gotaways are or how many or where they are, The Center Square has reported.

Since fiscal 2021, more than 370 KSTs have been apprehended after illegally entering between ports of entry at the southwest border compared to 14 between fiscal years 2017 and 2020, according to CBP data.

Overall, more than 1,700 KSTs have been apprehended illegally entering the U.S. since fiscal 2021 as of July 12, with the majority apprehended at the northern border (1,054), according to CBP data.

The subpoena was issued after more than a year of DHS “stonewalling and failure to satisfy the Committee’s document and information requests related to the record number of inadmissible aliens on the Terrorist Screening Data Set who are crossing the Southwest border between ports of entry,” Green said in a statement on Friday.

“President Biden and his now-impeached DHS secretary’s refusal to secure our borders or comply with our laws is putting our country in rapidly growing peril,” Green said after numerous officials have continued to warn about increased terrorist threats because of the Biden administration’s “open border policies.”

“The Biden administration has utterly failed to safeguard the American people by allowing millions of otherwise inadmissible aliens into the country with limited screening and vetting, including tens of thousands of special interest aliens,” Green said. “Secretary Mayorkas has continued to stonewall congressional oversight and clearly will not comply unless compelled to do so – because he knows this information places the blame squarely at his and President Biden’s feet.”

The subpoena was also issued after 21 Republican U.S. senators demanded answers from Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray about federal agents releasing illegal border crossers into the U.S. who weren’t properly vetted and were later discovered to have alleged terrorist connections. They demanded answers after the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman and a retired CIA director warned that potential terrorist attacks could occur on U.S. soil before the end of the year, The Center Square reported.

Wray testified earlier this year about potential terrorist threats connected to the Islamic terrorist organization, ISIS. Not soon after, NBC News reported that DHS had identified more than 400 foreign nationals from countries of foreign concern in Central Asia who were connected to an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network and illegally entered the U.S., The Center Square reported.

The senators also highlighted examples of “multiple recent releases of aliens on the terrorist watchlist into the United States,” including from Afghanistan, Jordan, Somalia, Uzbekistan and others.

The majority of the KSTs who illegally entered through the southwest border and were released into the U.S. were released because CBP said they weren’t on the terrorist watchlist, “according to the three officials, and the agency did not have information raising concerns at the time,” NBC News reported.

The OIG's report contradicts this argument, noting in a recent audit that DHS’ “ineffective practices and processes for resolving inconclusive matches with the Terrorist Watchlist led to multiple mistakes.” Agency deficiencies have allowed KSTs to illegally enter the U.S. and “potentially threaten national security and public safety,” the OIG warned.

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