Op-ed: The Biden-Harris Administration Risks Another 9/11?
The administration refuses to reevaluate its easy-admission border policies, despite the identification of hundreds of terrorist suspects in the waves of illegal immigrants entering the country.
By Phillip Linderman on October 29, 2024
The proximate cause of the 9/11 catastrophe was the failure of U.S. border security. Specifically, the terrorist attackers succeeded in their suicide mission because U.S. government agencies failed to manage the national watchlist that would have easily identified the 9/11 operational ringleader, Mohamed Atta.
That history is why the recently released report of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement deserves serious attention. The report makes clear that since the Biden-Harris administration began opening the border, U.S. authorities have encountered at least 382 illegal immigrants listed on the national terrorist watchlist. This alarming datapoint has apparently failed to capture the White House’s attention or convince senior administration officials to reevaluate their border management.
It is sobering to compare this moment with the period before 9/11. Like then, Washington’s leadership today appears heedless and shortsighted in managing the terrorist threat to the homeland. As before 9/11, the White House assumption today appears to be that our counterterrorism protective measures are working well enough.
The 382 number in the report is just the tip of the iceberg; the figure represents illegals that U.S. authorities actually encountered and identified in the terrorist database. There are also the “got-aways,” the estimated 1.9 million illegal migrants who entered the country without any official contact whatsoever. Unlike with legal immigrants, whom U.S. consular officials normally pre-screen in their home countries, these uninvited border-jumpers enter our country as complete unknowns.
https://cis.org/Linderman/Oped-BidenHarris-Administration-Risks-Another-911
