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Surge In ‘Inadmissible’ Afghans Trying To Cross Southern Border Is Nothing Short Of Alarming

Published

12 months ago

7 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By TERENCE P. JEFFREY

 

There is good reason for Americans to be concerned about individuals from Afghanistan coming across our southern border.

When Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, testified in the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 7 he issued a warning about ISIS-K, a terrorist group based in Afghanistan.

“[V]arious groups in the Central Region retain the capability and will to target U.S. interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” Kurilla said in a written statement to the committee.

“We assess an attack on American soil would likely take longer,” he said.

“Taliban pressure against ISIS-K temporarily disrupted the group’s ability to plan and conduct attacks against the Homeland and Western targets, but that pressure has been intermittent and insufficient,” Kurilla said in his statement.

“ISIS-K and its allies retain a safe haven in Afghanistan, and they continue to develop their networks in and out of the country,” he said.

“Their goals do not stop there,” he said.

“They have called for attacks globally on anyone not aligned with their extremist ideology, and Taliban efforts to suppress the group have proven insufficient,” he said. “The recent ISIS attack in Kerman, Iran demonstrates the group’s resiliency and indicates that they retain the capability to conduct spectacular external operations.”

What happened in Kerman?

“ISIS-K killed 91 Iranians and injured 284 others in Kerman on 3 January 2024,” Kurilla said. “This was the deadliest terror attack in Iran since 1979 and it is part of ISIS’ effort to exploit the war in Gaza to rejuvenate its global attacks.”

ISIS-K is not the only terrorist group in Afghanistan.

“Al Qaeda, while weakened, still enjoys safe havens in Afghanistan and Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) operates training camps, safehouses, and religious schools in Afghanistan,” he said.

“Both AQIS and AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] continue to call for lone wolf attacks on U.S. and Western interests via their digital reach,” he said.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who served as a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan, questioned Kurilla about what he had said about ISIS and al-Qaeda.

In this exchange, Kurilla said an ISIS attack in Europe or Eurasia is more likely in the near future than one in the United States itself.

“You said — and this is close to a direct quote — that we could see attacks against U.S. or Western interests abroad with little to no warning in as little as six months,” Cotton said. “Are you speaking there about ISIS and al-Qaeda from Afghanistan?”

Kurilla responded: “ISIS-Khorasan specifically, and also out of Syria, which they are trying to factor into predominantly European countries.”

“So,” said Cotton, “ISIS out of either Afghanistan or Syria, attacks against U.S. interests and Western interests abroad in as little as six months. Now, abroad can mean a lot of things. Abroad could mean our embassy in Tajikistan. It could also mean Western Europe or North America.

“Could you be more specific?” Cotton asked.

“Europe and Eurasia,” said Kurilla.

“What is the timeline you foresee in which those terrorist organizations could launch an attack with little or no warning against the American homeland?” asked Cotton.

“I think it is … a lot more difficult for them to be able to do that and requires substantially more resources,” responded Kurilla.

“OK,” said Cotton, “so six months anywhere across Eurasia and indeterminate time in North America?”

“Yes,” said CENTCOM’s commander.

When Kurilla had testified in the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2023, he admitted that U.S. intelligence gathering in Iraq had diminished.

“At one time, we had 60 balloons over Kabul, Afghanistan,” Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said to Kurilla then. “Our ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance] is very limited. How confident are you in the intelligence you have to see threats rising from the Taliban?”

“Our intelligence has degraded since we are no longer in Afghanistan,” Kurilla said. “I believe we can see the broad contours of an attack. Sometimes we lack the granularity to see the full picture and we’re working to close that gap with our alternative airborne ISR and some of our other intelligence that we are working to penetrate those networks.”

Since this nation’s military forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration has been conducting “Operation Enduring Sentinel.” Last month, the inspectors general for this operation released their report for the first quarter of 2024.

Operation Enduring Sentinel, it explains, is “the U.S. mission to conduct over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations against threats emanating from Afghanistan and to engage with Central Asian and South Asian regional partners to combat terrorism and promote regional stability.”

The United States, of course, is continuing to accept refugee applications from people fleeing the situation in Afghanistan. “From October 1, 2020, to March 6, 2024, USCIS interviewed approximately 24,400 Afghan refugee applicants,” said the inspectors general report.

Then there are those who are not refugee applicants.

“In addition,” said the report, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 68 Afghan ‘inadmissible non-citizens’ at the U.S. Southwest Border in FY 2022 and 342 in FY 2023.

“As of March 5,” it said, “CBP had encountered 932 in FY 2024.” 

How many “inadmissible non-citizen” Afghans made it across the southwest border in those first 156 days of this fiscal year without being encountered by the Border Patrol?

It only took 19 al-Qaeda terrorists to carry out the 9/11 attack.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the investigative editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation. To find out more about Terence P. Jeffrey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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LA protests continue as judge pulls back CA National Guard ahead of ‘No Kings Day’

Published on June 12, 2025

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From The Center Square

By

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.

This is a developing story.

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Business

Trump: ‘Changes are coming’ to aggressive immigration policy after business complaints

Published on June 12, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By

“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!”

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