Syrian refugeesRefugee system “vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups”: U.S. intelligence

Syrian refugees may contain terrorists // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

On Monday, in his inaugural State of Homeland Security Address, House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) highlighted new concerns regarding refugees with ties to terrorist groups in Syria who might try to enter the United States. Earlier this year, McCaul wrote to intelligence officials regarding possible terrorist exploitation of Syrian refugee flows, and on Monday he released unclassified excerpts from a response letter provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence earlier this year. The letter noted that:

• The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has identified “…individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria attempting to gain entry to the U.S. through the U.S. refugee program.”
• In the same response letter, NCTC also offered that: “The refugee system, like all immigration programs, is vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups seeking to send operatives to the West. U.S. and Canadian authorities in 2011 arrested several refugees linked to what is now ISIL. Early in 2011, Canadian authorities arrested dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen Faruq ‘Isa who is accused of vetting individuals on the internet for suicide operations in Iraq. The FBI, in May of the same year, arrested Kentucky-based Iraqi refugees Wa’ad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi for attempting to send weapons and explosives from Kentucky to Iraq and conspiring to commit terrorism while in Iraq. Alwan pled guilty to the charges against him in December 2011, and Hammadi pled guilty in August 2012.”

Responding to the ODNI letter, McCaul said that “ISIS has said in their own words that they want to exploit the refugee program to enter the West. They have already proven their ability to do so with the attacks in Paris, which were reportedly perpetrated by terrorists who infiltrated Europe through refugee flows. I have deep concerns with what I have heard from the intelligence community regarding the vulnerability of the U.S.-bound Syrian refugee pipeline, and these revelations reaffirm my belief that we need tighter security to keep terrorists from slipping into the United States. I call on the Senate to take up our refugee security bill and the President to sign it.”

“That was very courageous for them to come forward with this, to tell me about this personally, given the political debate on the Hill,” McCaul told The Hill on Monday.

In his Monday’s State of Homeland Security Address, McCaul offered a gloomy assessment of American national security, comparing the stakes as similar to those in the Second World War fight against fascism.

He said that the ISIS threat is greater than at any time since 9/11, and that ISIS is “now more dangerous than al Qaeda ever was under Osama bin Laden.”

“I believe the state of our homeland is increasingly not secure,” McCaul said.

“I believe 2015 will be seen as a watershed year in this long war —  the year when our enemies gained an upper hand and when the spread of terror once again awoke the West.”

The House this week will consider legislation to tighten the security of the Visa Waiver program. “This is just the beginning,” McCaul said. “Over the coming weeks, we will introduce a slate of new bills based on the findings of the [bipartisan congressional] task force to keep terrorists from crossing our borders.”

McCaul told The Hill that among the issues to be considered will be further hardening the country’s borders, sharing intelligence with foreign countries, and examining challenges posed by the proliferation of encryption technologies.