So a border-crossing illegal immigrant has finally conducted a terror attack just as the FBI Director and the U.S. intelligence community has warned with increasing frequency would happen because of a 2021-2024 mass migration border crisis the New York Times recently concluded was the “largest in U.S. history”, fomented by policies of the Joe Biden administration.
Mauritanian national Sidi Mohammad Abdallahi, who illegally crossed the southern border during it in March 2023, entered the U.S. history books October 26 as the first to validate the long-hypothesized border terror infiltration threat with an attempt to massacre Jews and police in Chicago – as detailed in Part 1 and Part 2 of this “First Blood” series.
Now what? How might the incoming second administration of President Donald Trump reduce the threat of more such attacks with millions of foreign strangers already inside the United States and more constantly trying the southern land border?
Following are some remedies, starting with a highly viable one that comes from a most unexpected quarter, the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama and perhaps best frames where many solutions must aim: a category of illegal aliens the government has long termed “special interest aliens (SIAs)” or variations thereof, for hailing from countries where Islamist terrorist groups operate.
In June 2016, Obama’s DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, issued a three-page unclassified memorandum titled “Cross-Border Movement of Special Interest Aliens“. It ordered DHS border security and immigration agency directors to develop a concerted, whole-of-government initiative that would more robustly apply security vetting to SIA border-crossers and much more.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s 2016 Memo on Special Interest Aliens.
Since 2004 in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. Border Patrol and the US intelligence community came up with the SIA category tag to slap on apprehended illegal aliens who hailed from 35 mostly Muslim majority “countries of interest” where Islamist extremism and terrorist groups operated. Mauritania has long been on the intelligence community-created list, and Abdallahi therefore was an SIA.
The SIA tag didn’t mean the aliens were actual terrorists, of course, just that FBI or qualified intelligence officers would take a good, hard look at each to make sure they weren’t. To do that, agents endeavored to conduct intensive in-person interviews with them in detention centers, go through pocket trash and phones, and maybe check with amenable foreign intelligence agencies, looking for terrorism indicators that might weed out for deportation any who turned up as problematic.
Something related to “the increased global movement of SIAs” Johnson mentioned in the memo had clearly spooked him in 2016, perhaps the Muslim immigrants then pouring over European Union border in a mass migration surge, among them some who conducted attacks across the continent. (See: What Terrorist Migration Over European Borders Can Teach About American Border Security.) Perhaps he worried that the SIA security vetting program had fallen into dangerous disrepair a dozen years into it.
“As we all appreciate, SIAs may consist of those who are potential national security threats to our homeland”, the secretary wrote in the 2016 memo. “Thus the need for continued vigilance in this particular area.”
Whatever it was, the Johnson memo demanded the “immediate attention” of underlings to form a “multi-DHS Component ‘SIA Joint Action Group.’” The memo outlined plan objectives. Intelligence collection and analysis, Johnson wrote, would drive efforts to “counter the threats posed by the smuggling of SIAs.” Coordinated investigations would “bring down organizations involved in the smuggling of SIAs into and within the United States”, he wrote.
Border and port of entry operations capacities would “help us identify and interdict SIAs of national security concern who attempt to enter the United States” and “evaluate our border and port of entry security posture to ensure our resources are appropriately aligned to address trends in the migration of SIAs.”
The Obama administration’s SIA initiative never fully developed before Donald Trump took office in January 2017 and was soon lost in the shuffle, even though the old unreformed SIA vetting program remained in place, its FBI interviewers supplemented by specially trained agents of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol unit called Tactical Terrorism Response Teams (TTRTs) working ICE facilities.
But the Trump administration should resurrect the Johnson idea because an SIA action task force has never been needed more than now, both at the border and in the interior, with so many SIAs like Abdallahi now living inside the country with virtually no vetting beyond largely ineffective database biometrics checks before release.
But today, the SIA vetting program is all but nonexistent, swamped to oblivion by the epic Biden-era mass migration crisis that brought in tens of thousands of SIAs per year, including at least 400 \who were on the FBI’s terrorism watch list by the end of 2024. A majority are thought to have traveled from South American landing countries through the Colombia-Panama “Darien Gap” migration passage where enabling governments have facilitated northward passages by bus through to Nicaragua.
Under no circumstance could responsible agencies possibly interview and investigate more than a miniscule fraction of them. It is almost certain that Abdallahi did not undergo a face-to-face interview with a trained federal agent before he was released to go to Chicago.
Indeed, data leaked to the media shows that nearly 75,000 SIAs reached the southern border between October 2022 and August 2023. Another 30,000 SIAs entered in the following 15 months through February 2024, the Daily Caller reported. The Biden DHS responded by reducing the number of SIA countries from 35 to about 13 (still including Mauritania), another House Judiciary Subcommittee report said.
Far from able to interview these overwhelming thousands, every federal agent assigned to the border was so swamped that at least 99 illegal aliens who were on the terrorism watch list were accidentally released, an August 2024 House Judiciary Committee report said.
Key Recommendations
These facts present an argument for the incoming Trump administration’s DHS to follow through on Johnson’s idea to establish an aggressive SIA action task force that can quickly assess and oversee the resurrection of a more thorough, well-resourced vetting program at the land borders as other policies reduce overall migration flow to pre-Biden numbers. But that’s only a start to onboard other remedies that will reduce the current heightened risk from unvetted SIAs. Other high-priority solutions are as follows:
At the land borders
Restore the list of SIA countries to prior lengths; prioritize and resource federal personnel to conduct enhanced in-person vetting inside detention centers with a goal of 100 percent while more emphatically exploiting and enhancing the capabilities of the National Vetting Center (NVC) to assist in detecting derogatory information. (President Trump originally established the NVC, which the Biden administration maintained.) Consider the use of state and local fusion center officers and analysts as trusted partners to conduct vetting in detention centers under section 103 (a)(10) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which allows the federal use of state and local police resources. Encourage a congressional oversight responsibility with annual reporting requirements to ensure the SIA counterterrorism enterprise at the borders remains impactful, updated, and appropriately resourced.
Institute extended detention time and misdemeanor federal prosecution for illegal entry by SIAs and discourage any availability of bond-outs for SIAs; ensure that bed space availability is always commensurate with average SIA apprehension rates so that room is consistently available for detention times necessary for security screening, investigative efforts, court proceedings, or final removals.
In the U.S. interior
Convene regional ICE task forces that will compile databases of SIAs released into the United States since January 2021 under Biden-era policies and parole programs and require them to undergo belated enhanced security screenings, to include interviews, that were not previously conducted when they were released. Officers would act on derogatory information from abroad but also any uncovered during U.S. residency.
Prioritize and resource asylum fraud investigations of SIAs by empowering officers of the Fraud, Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to conduct forensic analyses of random samples of asylum claims by SIAs. Grant FDNS agents arrest and investigative referral authorities independent of any other agency, including ICE. Substantially increase FDNS investigative staff and train USCIS’s asylum officer corps to conduct national security vetting during the “credible fear” interview process in synchronicity with routine duties.
Have the Attorney General direct U.S. Attorneys to accept and prioritize asylum fraud case prosecutions and referrals from the newly empowered FDNS officer corps, resolving Government Accountability Office reporting in recent years that shows U.S. Attorneys reject most asylum fraud referrals.
Direct appropriate law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute U.S.-based individuals who encourage, induce, or directly fund the illegal cross-border smuggling of SIAs, for deterrent effect, under Section 274 (A)(1)(IV) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Abroad
Fully collaborate with the new Panamanian government in its plan to close the Darien Gap, through which many SIAs travel, by funding highly deterring, large-scale foreign repatriation flights to home countries and local detention facilities as needed. Provide aircraft as necessary. Furthermore, require large-scale repatriation flight programs in Colombia and Costa Rica. Consider funding repatriation flights from Mexico. Apply diplomatic pressure as appropriate on recalcitrant home nations to accept the flights.
Create a contingency plan to implement “offshore” asylum processing centers in countries of transit and origin, in conjunction with US-funded foreign air repatriation programs.
Increase the number of American law enforcement screeners able to interview SIAs in detention facilities of Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Brazil, and other Latin American countries known for the staging and transit of SIAs.
Direct and prioritize a surge of SIA smuggling investigations in Latin America by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); ensure more HSI units target SIA smuggling as a larger percentage of total crime categories in South America, Central America, and in Mexico.
Use all tools of government power to ensure that the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Ecuador, and (eventually) Cuba more robustly monitor, vet, audit, investigate, and prosecute corrupt practices within their consulates and embassies in countries of national security interest as a means to reduce wrongful issuances of visas.
Managing down the risks associated with SIA flows and detection of terrorism-minded immigrants within them, of course, gets easier when other deterrence policies reduce the overall numbers. Finding needles is easier when the haystacks are small.
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Protests in Los Angeles continued into Thursday night as tensions died down across the West Coast ahead of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrations planned for Saturday — the “No Kings Day” event is set to take place coast-to-coast amid civil unrest nationwide.
The Los Angeles Police Department posted to X as the 8 p.m. curfew went into effect Thursday, reporting that protesters were throwing “bricks, concrete and commercial grade fireworks.” The agency said less lethal munitions have been authorized and “may cause pain and discomfort.
The curfew covers an area where demonstrators have spent days protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration raids and the deployment of the California National Guard. A federal judge blocked his use of the guard late Thursday, but did not rule on the Marines also deployed there.
Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference in San Francisco shortly after the ruling, calling out Trump for deploying the guard without his consent. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer’s preliminary injunction takes effect Friday, at which point Newsom will resume control of his National Guard.
“This is what he does. He creates a problem, and then he tries to be a hero in his own Marvel movie. He initiated those raids,” Newsom said of Trump’s actions. “He significantly increased the scale and scope of those raids. That’s why he wants the National Guard, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of guardsmen and women, now being dispersed everywhere.”
The Trump administration filed an intent to appeal Breyer’s ruling shortly after. In the meantime, the guard will go back to its regular duties on Friday instead of guarding the federal immigration in downtown Los Angeles, only one day before thousands of protests nationwide against Trump.
According to a press release, the LAPD arrested 71 people for failure to disperse Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and intends to post another update Friday morning. Seven others were also arrested for violating the curfew, and two for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.
Protesters filmed live streams on YouTube leading up to the curfew, reporting that some people were arrested and that they heard munitions being fired. Some demonstrators encouraged the group to disperse, adding that escalating things may be what the administration is waiting for.
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation posted to social media Thursday evening that it had cut services short for the day in response to the protests. LAPD vehicles were seen lining the streets, with officers ready to issue arrests in the event of further unrest or curfew violations.
In some live streams, officers were seen issuing arrests just 30 minutes after the 8 p.m. curfew, and in some instances, towing away vehicles. Another protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, kicked off at 6 p.m. on Thursday after the Party for Socialism & Liberation called for demonstrations there.
The Salt Lake Police Department told KSL News Radio that the demonstration of roughly 600 people was mostly peaceful, aside from a damaged Tesla. Officers broke up some fights and remained on scene as it died down around 8:30 p.m., Brian Will with KUTV 2 News reported.
“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
President Donald Trump said Thursday that changes are coming to his aggressive immigration policies after complaints from farmers and business owners.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote in a social media post Thursday morning. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
Later Thursday, Trump made it clear that businesses need workers.
“Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers – they’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. And we’re going to have to do something about that,” the president said.
He added: “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.”
Just how Trump may change his approach to immigration enforcement remains unclear, but he said he wants to help farmers and business owners.
“You go into a farm and you look and people, they’ve been there for 20 or 25 years and they work great and the owner of the farm loves them and you’re supposed to throw them out. You know what happens? They end up hiring the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else,” Trump said.
Trump said changes would be coming soon, but gave little detail on how policies could change.
“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
In a later post on Truth Social, Trump said illegal immigration had destroyed American institutions.
“Biden let 21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens flood into the Country from some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional Nations on Earth — Many of them Rapists, Murderers, and Terrorists. This tsunami of Illegals has destroyed Americans’ Public Schools, Hospitals, Parks, Community Resources, and Living Conditions,” the president wrote. “They have stolen American Jobs, consumed BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in Free Welfare, and turned once idyllic Communities, like Springfield, Ohio, into Third World Nightmares.”
He added that deportations would continue: “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History. Polling shows overwhelming Public Support for getting the Illegals out, and that is exactly what we will do. As Commander-in-Chief, I will always protect and defend the Heroes of ICE and Border Patrol, whose work has already resulted in the Most Secure Border in American History. Anyone who assaults or attacks an ICE or Border Agent will do hard time in jail. Those who are here illegally should either self deport using the CBP Home App or, ICE will find you and remove you. Saving America is not negotiable!”
