Thread: Agents nab Pakistanis with terrorist connections crossing U.S. border

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, December 30, 2015

The Border Patrol nabbed two Pakistani men with ties to terrorism at the U.S.-Mexico border in September in the latest instance of illegal immigrants from so-called “special interest countries” using the southern border as a point of entry to the U.S.

Muhammad Azeem and Mukhtar Ahmad, both in their 20s and from Gujrat, were caught Sept. 20 by agents south of San Diego and just over the international border from Tijuana. When agents checked their identities through databases they got hits on both of them: Mr. Ahmad popped up as an associate of a known or suspected terrorist, while Mr. Azeem’s information had been shared by a foreign government for intelligence purposes.

Both men had been processed two months earlier by immigration officials in Panama, suggesting they took advantage of smuggling networks or other routes increasingly used by Central American illegal immigrants to sneak into the U.S.

It comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill are increasingly worried about potential terrorists gaining entry to the U.S. through its southern border or taking advantage of lax screening elsewhere in the immigration system.

“The southern land border remains vulnerable to intrusion and exists as a point of extreme vulnerability,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last week demanding answers about how many people in the FBI’s terrorist screening database have been caught at the border.

“Evidently there are criminal organizations and individuals with the networks and knowhow to facilitate illegal entry into the United States without regard for one’s intentions or status on a terrorist watchlist,” Mr. Hunter wrote. “The detention of the two Pakistani nationals underscores the fact that any serious effort to secure our homeland must include effective border security and immigration enforcement.”

The FBI, whose agents were brought in to interview the two men, declined to talk about the case, saying it had “no information to provide.”

The Border Patrol turned the men over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which said they have been in custody since September and are being held while they face immigration court proceedings.

Other incidents have raised questions about the extent to which terrorists can take advantage of smuggling networks in Latin America.

A year before the two Pakistani men were caught, the Border Patrol apprehended four Kurdish men who said they were part of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front/Party, which is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Mr. Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, said the four were actually members of the Kurdish Workers Party, which is also listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The Washington Times reported last year that the four men had paid $8,000 each to be smuggled from Istanbul through Paris to Mexico City, where they were kept by a smuggling network before being driven to the U.S. border. Their trip highlighted the existence of smuggling networks capable of getting terrorists from the Middle East to the U.S. border.

Earlier this winter two Syrian families sparked a furor when they showed up at the U.S.-Mexico border demanding asylum.

Terrorists’ potential entry points into the U.S. have been hotly debated since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which saw many of the hijackers enter on legal visas but remain in the country after their permission had expired.

The woman involved in the recent California terrorist attack was admitted on a fiancee visa.

In the case of the two Pakistani men, they both approached a Border Patrol agent who was doing line duty at a location known as the Libertad Hump.

It’s unclear if they asserted an asylum claim or made some other defense.

Border Patrol agents determined the two had been screened in Panama in late July, though documents didn’t say how they spent the intervening two months before they were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border.

ICE said it has taken steps to try to combat smuggling networks, and particularly those that threaten U.S. national security interests, through its Homeland Security Investigations unit.

“HSI places special priority on organizations known to transport individuals from countries with ties to terrorism,” ICE said in a statement to The Times. “Our primary concern is closing the illicit pathways that may pose a threat to our national security. We use investigative, prosecutorial and intelligence resources to target and aggressively pursue, disrupt and dismantle foreign-based criminal travel networks — particularly those involved in the movement of individuals from countries of national security concern.”

The agency didn’t provide details on individuals on those terrorism-related investigations, but said overall in 2013 and 2014 the unity arrested nearly 6,000 people in connection with human smuggling.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...bed-us-border/

I'm going to forward this to the House Committee on Homeland Security. It is not the Committee which Trey Gowdy is Chair of. The Chair of this one is Rep. Michael McCaul.

homeland.security@mail.house.gov

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times

The Border Patrol nabbed two Pakistani men with ties to terrorism at the U.S.-Mexico border in September in the latest instance of illegal immigrants from so-called “special interest countries” using the southern border as a point of entry to the U.S.

Thank you for adding the pic to the article JohnDoe2.

"Credible threat" posed by unknown Afghans and Pakistanis

By Marty Graham, Jan. 5, 2016


Between October 1 and mid-November of last year, 2 Afghans and 22 Pakistanis reportedly surrendered to Border Patrol agents

Among the several dozen Pakistani and Afghan men who have entered the U.S. illegally, coming into San Diego from Tijuana, two were found to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a letter sent by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter to the Department of Homeland Security.

Muhammad Azeem and Muktar Ahmad, both in their 20s, surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents in September, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One was listed on the Terrorist Screening Database for “associations with a known or suspected terrorist. The other was a positive match for derogatory information in an alternative database,” according to Hunter’s letter.

Azeem and Ahmad are among dozens of men — described by Border Patrol agents as “military age and carrying U.S. cash” who began entering the U.S. through a Tijuana-based human-smuggling pipeline in September.

Pakistanis and Afghans crossing the border illegally in the San Diego sector are pretty unusual, according to Border Patrol statistics. In 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained fewer than 400 Pakistanis throughout the entire United States — at the ports of entry, airports, and along the border between ports.

Between October 1, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2015, the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol detained 18 Pakistanis and 1 Afghan, according to Border Patrol statistics. Between October 1 and mid-November of last year, 2 Afghans and 22 Pakistanis reportedly surrendered to Border Patrol agents.

“We have detained more Pakistanis and Afghans in the first month of this fiscal year than we did all last year,” assistant chief Richard Smith confirmed in November.

In the month and a half since mid-November, 3 more Afghans and 6 more Pakistanis were detained by the Border Patrol (not including those detained at the ports of entry).

Customs officials did not return calls for their statistics on detentions at the ports of entry.

The decline in arrests had not lessened concerns, however. Federal agents say they believe that the Pakistanis have begun making an effort to avoid being caught.

Until November, they would enter in groups and seek a federal agent to surrender to, according to union officials. It is believed that they did this because illegal entrants who are not Mexican citizens and who are deemed to not pose a significant threat are generally given a date to appear at immigration court and then released on their own recognizance. (Central Americans coming to Texas and the Roma in San Diego both used the same method to enter the U.S. in the past two years.)

But that method has changed, National Border Patrol Council president Terence Shigg said. While the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector continues to apprehend Pakistanis and Afghans, they are now finding them travelling alone and often farther north of the border than the earlier surrenders.

“It’s very concerning,” Shigg said. “We have no idea what their actual intentions are because we have no effective way of backtracking. Just the males are coming and there’s no way for us to know for certain who they are and why.”

Both Azeem and Ahmad remain in ICE custody, spokeswoman Lauren Mack confirmed. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, she noted, and works closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on terrorism-related investigations.

Stratfor vice president of intelligence Fred Burton, interviewed last month, noted that identity documents from Afghanistan and Pakistan should set off alarms.

“The challenge of getting these individuals is getting who they actually are confirmed — proving identity is difficult in that environment,” Burton said. “Afghanistan and Pakistan do not have a robust identification system — these are places where there is tremendous potential for official document and visa fraud.”

Shigg said he believes that federal officials should be talking openly about this new development and committing more resources to keeping people from such countries in custody until they can be completely vetted.

“It’s not as if they don’t have the systems to sort, but they have to dedicate the resources and detention space to sorting this out,” he said. “These are credible threats.”

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