Border securityMexican drug cartels smuggling illegals into U.S. create security risk, officials say
DHS has defined several countries — primarily China, but also Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan — as “special interest countries”; smuggling potential terrorists and citizens of special interest countries across the U.S. border is evolving into a billion dollar industry for Mexican drug cartels, posing a significant threat to the United States
An easily crossable border // Source: wordpress.com
Smuggling of potential terrorists across the border is evolving into a billion dollar industry for Mexican drug cartels, posing a significant threat to the United States, according to federal law enforcement officials.
This was echoed in a recent assessment by the U.S. military’s Southern Command that found drug cartels are taking advantage of a “largely unregulated” border to create security risk for the United States.
“Of particular concern is the smuggling of criminal aliens and gang members who pose public safety threats to communities throughout the border region and the country,” said the Southern Command report obtained by the Washington Examiner. “These individuals include hundreds of undocumented aliens from special interest countries, primarily China, but also Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan.”
Washington Examiner’s Sara A. Carter writes that DHS policy requires that many illegal immigrants from countries that have been breeding grounds for anti-American sentiment, known as “special interest aliens,” be released unless there is specific evidence of threat. Most fail to appear for hearings.
“We don’t always know who we have in custody,” said a DHS official who asked not to be named. “We still have a catch and release program, and we don’t always know if those are good or bad guys. It’s difficult to coordinate with our Mexican counterparts, and many times we have no idea who made it across with the aid of the cartels.”
Rafael Lemaitre, senior spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with DHS, said “upon apprehension, DHS makes determinations on admissibility and custody of special interest aliens on a case-by-case basis based on a variety of factors, including legal status, prior criminality and intelligence.”
In the first five years after 9/11, DHS reported a 41 percent increase in arrests of illegal immigrants from countries known to have large populations of terrorists from al Qaeda or other anti-U.S. groups. In 2008 the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics reported that federal law enforcement agencies detained 791,568 deportable aliens. According to the agency, 5,506 of them were special interest aliens.
“Available reporting indicates that some alien smuggling organizations (ASOs) in Mexico specialize in moving special-interest aliens into the United States,” stated a February 2010 National Drug Threat Assessment by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Carter writes that the DOJ threat assessment said no known terrorists had been apprehended at the U.S. border in the past five years. That did not surprise federal law enforcement agents and intelligence officers interviewed by the Examiner. They pointed out that reports on foreign nationals with terrorist ties caught at the border would not be made readily available to the public.
“As the cartels begin to realize the enormous amount of funding that’s available in transporting special interest aliens, they’ll do more of it,” said a military official with knowledge of cartel operations. “We need to be mindful because this type of human smuggling is a definite threat to security and human smuggling is a billion dollar industry.”
The Examiner first reported in March on the apprehension of twenty-three Somali illegal aliens in Mexico who were released in January by Mexican immigration officials. It was later discovered by U.S. intelligence and Mexican authorities that one of the men was a member of the Somali terrorist organization al Shabab, which has direct ties to al Qaeda. So far, the men have not been located.
In 2006 a federal report documented that a man who called himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended by chance off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico. He was just one of 165,000 persons from countries other than Mexico who were apprehended that year. Of those, 650 were from special interest countries.
After a week of interrogations, the FBI discovered Salinas was really an Egyptian by the name of Ayman Sulmane Kamal. He was taken into custody, and no further information about him has been released by the federal government.
The Kamal case was an “example of getting lucky,” a U.S. official said. “Just think, for every one that is captured, maybe two or three people from special interest nations get through. We don’t know who they are or if they’re planning anything — we just keep hoping that we’ll keep getting lucky.”
