WASHINGTON, DC- Law Enforcement Today has reported a number of times about illegal aliens breaching military bases throughout the country, and now a US lawmaker has started to pay attention. That comes after a report this week that eight Tajikistan nationals with possible ties to ISIS-K had been arrested in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
Officials are becoming increasingly concerned about a possible attack on the homeland, The Epoch Times reports.
ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the March 22 terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed 140 and injured hundreds more.
The eight individuals taken into custody by ICE last week were being tracked by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. They are being held on immigration violation charges, according to wire reports.
It was reported that the suspects crossed the porous southern border in 2023 and were released after being “vetted.” The screening process did not identify any concerns that would have identified them as potential ISIS-K terrorists.
According to Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who sits on the National Security, Border, and Foreign Affairs subcommittee said that wiretap information showed that one of the eight suspects was discussing “bombs.”
“That’s scary. The vetting is a joke,” Fallon told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview.
The latest incident draws attention to an increase in foreign nationals entering the US not just from Mexico and Central America, but also adversarial nations, who are among the 180 different countries encountered at the border.
As reported several times by Law Enforcement Today, one of the fastest-growing groups of illegal aliens arriving from hostile countries come from China, with an explosion in the number of Chinese illegals, primarily military-aged men, arriving in the US.
For example, in the first seven months of this fiscal year, border patrol agents have apprehended 48,500 Chinese illegals, which is on pace to obliterate the 2023 fiscal year record of 52,700, which ends September 30.
That invasion of Chinese nationals comes at the same time that nationals from that communist nation and other adversarial nations have been caught attempting to access US military bases.
In May, Fallon’s subcommittee held a classified hearing titled: “Intruder Alert: Assessing the CCP’s Ongoing Infiltration of U.S. Military Installations.”
Fallon told The Epoch Times the revelations uncovered at the hearing were “concerning.” For example, dozens of incidents have come forth of Chinese nationals taking pictures near military installations, as well as critical infrastructure such as reservoirs while claiming to be tourists, even though most facilities are rural and isolated, Fallon said.
Fallon related that Navy Admiral Daryl Caudle in a recent interview said that such incidents involving foreign nationals from China and Russia trying to breach US Navy bases happen “two or three times a week.”
“There are some folks in positions of authority and power that want to stick their heads in the sand and say, ‘Oh, there’s nothing here,” he said. Fallon believes these probes are intended to measure US response and how close they can actually get to bases.
With tensions increasing between the two superpowers and China saber-rattling over Taiwan, such information on US response to attempted breaches would be important.
Fallon acknowledged that some Chinese nationals may be coming to the US seeking a better life, however noted that if even one percent were communist “sleeper agents” that is a significant number totaling approximately 480 operatives.
Fallon also doesn’t believe the significant number of Chinese nationals entering the U.S. illegally is being done by accident or without other motives.
“That is a sky high number when you consider under the Trump administration it was under 1,000,” Fallon said. For example, in 2020, Border Patrol apprehended only 554 Chinese illegal aliens nationwide, according to government data.
“So, I unfortunately believe that there’s going to be something awful that happens from an incident like this,” he said.
Since Biden took office in January 2021, it is estimated that over nine million illegals have entered the United States, with some estimates putting that number much higher. And that doesn’t include hundreds of thousands of “gotaways,” who are not seeking asylum and who intentionally evaded Border Patrol.
Yvette Clark (D-N.Y.), member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, said during a hearing last month that the U.S. immigration system is “broken” and turning to the Democrat Party playbook blamed racism as the reason people are opposed to leaving the border wide open.
Meanwhile, Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Center for Border Security and Immigration for the Heritage Foundation, who worked as Consul with the US State Department during the Trump administration, says the large number of Chinese nationals crossing the border gives Beijing a larger pool of citizens to strong-arm into spying.
“We let everybody come in. So we are accepting a level of risk that we shouldn’t,” Hankinson told The Epoch Times.
The House Homeland Security Committee launched an investigation after the May 3 breach of the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. A news release from the committee said two Jordanian nationals drove a truck to the main gate of Quantico, where guards attempted to redirect them after the two men failed to produce proper credentials.
The two ignored the guards’ order and moved the truck forward until it was stopped by vehicle denial barriers. The two illegals were detained and turned over to ICE. One of the two had crossed the border illegally and was on the terrorist watch list.
The committee wrote a letter to defense and intelligence agencies noting that hundreds of illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list had been apprehended trying to enter the US since 2021, with 367 arrested at US ports of entry.
The Homeland Security Committee drew similarities between the Quantico breach and an incident in March involving an illegal Chinese national who entered the Marine Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms in California, claiming to be lost. That base is located in a remote California desert.
A similar letter was sent by the committee in 2023 to intelligence and military leaders questioning other incidents involving base breaches that were reported by the media.
In one case, Chinese nationals were caught crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico, while two other Chinenationals were caught scuba diving close to a rocket launch site in Florida used for surveillance satellites and other sensitive military applications.
There are numerous other incidents on U.S. military installations and vital infrastructure locations that should be of overwhelming concern to U.S. officials.
Hankinson says the risk of not only terrorist attacks, but also espionage attempts rise as the number of illegal aliens entering the U.S. increases.
“It comes down to a number’s game,” he said. “They don’t have time to vet anybody.”
To make matters worse, the number of screening questions asked of Chinese nationals has been pared down to only five from what was previously 40, according to information revealed during a recent hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.
Hankinson noted that having used vetting interviews himself, they are of limited use if records and other information from the illegals’ native country aren’t disseminated to the United States. He also noted that repatriation reluctance from other countries shouldn’t be used as an excuse to release people into the United States.
“Any president that decided this was a priority, we’d be able to use diplomatic, economic, and other means to convince [those] countries,” he said.
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