An early leader among Democratic presidential hopefuls says, “Precisely zero terrorists, terrorist groups or terror plots have ever been connected with the U.S.-Mexico border to do harm to people within the United States.”<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Robert \u201cBeto\u201d O\u2019Rourke<\/a>, D-Texas, knows better (or at least he should). Even left-leaning Politico<\/a> declared his statement \u201cfalse.\u201d<\/p>\n The Center for Immigration Studies<\/a> recently reported that 15 migrants with credibly suspected or confirmed terrorism ties were apprehended at the southern border or encountered en route in Central America.<\/p>\n The roster, compiled from public documents, is undoubtedly an undercount, since, as CIS notes, \u201cMost information relevant to addressing the question of how often terrorist suspects were apprehended at, or migrating to, the border resides in government intelligence database systems exempt from public disclosure. This list therefore cannot be regarded as comprehensive,\u201d CIS cautioned.<\/p>\n Affiliations of the publicly known \u201cSpecial Interest Aliens\u201d (SIAs) include al-Shabbab, al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, Hezbollah, the Pakistani Taliban, ISIS, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh and the Tamil Tigers.<\/p>\n The open-borders Cato Institute<\/a><\/u> acknowledges that that some 45,000 SIAs have been detained by U.S. authorities since 2007. Cato then blithely assures that there have been \u201cno U.S. terrorist attacks from illegal border crossers.\u201d<\/p>\n No harm, no foul?<\/p>\n Beto apparently thinks so, but the State Department<\/a> says otherwise. Officials there warn that America\u2019s southern neighbors are more open than ever to terrorist infiltration and transit.<\/p>\n