Hundreds of migrants have reportedly entered the U.S. through an ISIS-affiliated network and the whereabouts of over 50 of these individuals remain unknown, NBC News reported Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has identified more than 400 foreign nationals who reached the U.S. from various Central Asian countries and other parts of the world as “subjects of concern” because they arrived via an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network, according to three U.S. officials that spoke with NBC News. Over 150 of these migrants have been apprehended by U.S. authorities, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t know the whereabouts of more than 50 of them.
“The fact that the whereabouts were unknown is clearly alarming,” former FBI counterterrorism section chief Christopher O’Leary, said to NBC News. He added that ICE is likely pursuing these arrests in order to neutralize any potential threat to national security they may pose, even if there is no clear evidence that they are attempting an attack on the U.S.
“I believe the [U.S.] is scrambling to locate these individuals, and using the immigration charges is not uncommon,” O’Leary stated. “They are in violation of that law. And if you need to take somebody off the street, that’s a good approach to do it.”
Some of the migrants who were arrested have already been removed from the country, according to NBC News. The remaining migrants have been found across 17 states in the U.S., and could be arrested soon by authorities.
While some of the migrants who have been detained or repatriated were charged with immigration violations, none of them to date have been accused of terrorism-related offenses, according to NBC News.
The report follows FBI and DHS confirmation earlier this month of a nationwide sting operation that resulted in the arrest of several foreign nationals with suspected terror ties. Those individuals were also nationals of a Central Asian country — Tajikistan.
“Over the last few days, ICE agents arrested several non-citizens pursuant to immigration authorities,” a joint statement from the FBI and DHS about the operation reads. “The actions were carried out in close coordination with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces.”
“The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings,” the statement continued. “As the FBI and DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the U.S. has been in a heightened threat environment.”
The heightened tensions over a potential terrorist attack come as the number of suspected terrorists reaching U.S. borders have spiked exponentially under the Biden administration.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Flickr/U.S. Department of Homeland Security)
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