lax enforcement of the United States’ southern border presents a major national security risk, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) says.
“That’s the thing that I’ve really been emphasizing to my colleagues here in Congress, is that this is a huge opening for national security concerns, with bad people that can come into the United States very easily at this point,” Tiffany, a member of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, told NTD’s “Capitol Report.”
Tiffany has made multiple trips this year to see the crisis firsthand, first to Texas, and then to Panama, where migrants must traverse to get to the United States.
“When I made that trip to McAllen, Texas, the Border Patrol said, ‘You really need to look deeper. You need to look deeper than just Mexico or the Northern Triangle in Central America, that there are people we are stopping, they’re coming from all over the world. If you really want to see it, go down to Panama,’” Tiffany recalled. “And so that was the genesis of making the trip down there, and really seeing what’s happening.”
Migrants must go on a 7- to 10-day walk through the Darien Gap, an inhospitable jungle in Panama and Colombia, on their way north.
Roughly 10 percent don’t survive, investigative journalist Michael Yon told Pezou earlier this year.
Those that do make it through and eventually get into the United States are coming from all over, including Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, Tiffany said.
He sees a direct connection with the dramatic changes President Joe Biden and his administration made to the immigration enforcement system and the spike in illegal immigration.
“After the actions of the Biden administration on Jan. 20, when they basically turned the green light on at the southern border—that was a message also to the drug traffickers, the cartels, and others: ‘You can bring other people in,’” Tiffany said. “You know the bad guys in the Middle East and other parts of the world, they understand better than anybody, ‘We can get people into the United States.’ I’m very concerned about sleeper cells that are in the United States at this point as a result of this open borders.”
Customs and Border Protection has confirmed that two Yemeni nationals on the terror watchlist were apprehended at the border this year, and reportedly told Congress that at least two other terror suspects were detained at the border since Biden took office.
“Individuals that they have on the watch list for terrorism are now starting to exploit the southern border,” Rep. John Katko, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters at the border earlier this year.
Biden administration has defended the system overhaul, arguing earlier iterations were inhumane and didn’t properly treat illegal immigrants. At the same time, the administration has kept in place some Trump-era provisions. Title 42 will continue to be used, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to Pezou this week, to expel some immigrants due to concerns they carry the virus that causes COVID-19. And the “Remain in Mexico” program, which the Department of Homeland Security said was successful in decreasing the number of illegal immigrants, was reinstated this month due to a court order.
Tiffany recommended colleagues take a trip down and see what he did, even if they represent areas that are not on or close to the border.
“I’m as far away from the southern border as you’re going to get in northern Wisconsin, but what’s very clear after having been there, as well as Panama: every state in the United States is now a border state,” Tiffany said.
Pezou : Rep. Tiffany: ‘Open Borders’ a Huge National Security Risk