Thread: Migrants from Terrorist Nations in Texas ICE Center Seeking Asylum

October 20, 2015

The Obama administration insists the southern border is secure, yet dozens of illegal aliens from terrorist nations entered the United States through Mexico and are being held in a Texas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center.

The detainees are nationals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and they are seeking asylum in the U.S. This week the 54 migrants from terrorist nations started a hunger strike to protest their detention at an ICE facility in El Paso. A local news report reveals that the foreign nationals “refused to eat or drink water” and a leftist immigrant advocacy group blasted the government for jailing the Afghans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis without proper medical care.

One of the detainees released from the ICE processing center over the weekend said he arrived in El Paso after traveling from South America to Juarez, Mexico. He is a national of Bangladesh, his name is MD Nasir Uddin and he claims to be a refugee seeking asylum. In the news report Uddin complains that he was jailed for no valid reason and was not provided with an interpreter, legal documents or judgements against him. “We are not criminals and they don’t have any proof of criminals,” Uddin is quoted.

Just last month the U.S. issued a terrorism alert warning that militants in Bangladesh may be targeting westerners. “The U.S. government continues to receive information that terrorist groups in South Asia may also be planning attacks in the region, possibly against U.S. government facilities, U.S. citizens, or U.S. interests,” the bulletin states. “Terrorists have demonstrated their willingness and ability to attack locations where U.S. citizens or Westerners are known to congregate or visit.” Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been known as the headquarters of Al Qaeda’s global leadership and the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism offers all the juicy details.

The fact that individuals from these three terrorist nations have made it all the way to the U.S. through the Mexican border is downright alarming. Judicial Watch contacted officials from several Homeland Security agencies—including ICE and the Border Patrol—but none would comment on the 54 Afghans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis held in El Paso. The reality is that it’s unlikely the story would have been covered if not for the hunger strike and involvement of a publicity-seeking immigrant advocacy organization. In fact, the focus of the El Paso news report is the “critical medical condition” of some of the detainees and the fact that one was held in solitary confinement.

The reality is that this is part of a very serious issue involving the dangerously porous southern border. Judicial Watch has covered this extensively and over the summer published a story detailing how Mexican drug cartels are smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. To elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers, they use remote farm roads—rather than interstates—and they are being transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road. The foreigners are classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the U.S. government, which prefers to keep this from the American public.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...eeking-asylum/

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/contact/committee

Chairman, Committee Learn About Incentives for Central American Migration

“We share the same goal — we all want everybody to have the opportunity to build a good life for themselves and their families.”

Wednesday, October 21, 2015 WASHINGTON — “We have to secure our borders,” Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in his opening remarks at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, “not just for the illegal immigration issue, but for national security, for public health and safety. This is a serious matter; it deserves serious attention.”


Wednesday’s hearing was the 12th hearing the committee has held on the lack of security at America’s borders. The purpose of the hearing was to assess the ongoing illegal migration from Central America and to address the incentives that underlie it.
“In fiscal year 2014, the border patrol apprehended 66,000 unaccompanied children, primarily in the Rio Grande Valley,” Chris Cabrera, a border patrol agent from the Rio Grande Valley sector, said, testifying on behalf of the National Border Patrol Council. “Although the apprehensions of UACs are down 50 percent in fiscal year 2015, this is no cause for celebration. We will still apprehend 30,000 unaccompanied children this year and an additional 40,000 in family groups.”
An increase in the use of social media to attract Central American families is one root cause, Kimberly M. Gianopoulos, director of International Affairs and Trade for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified. “Social media outlets enable migrants who arrive in the United States to share messages and pictures with families in their home countries. This can serve as a powerful and influential endorsement of the decision to migrate.”
Another root cause is America’s current “catch-and-release policy.” Cabrera testified from his experience interviewing detained families and unaccompanied children that “most believe they will not be caught or even if they are caught, they will not be deported back to their home country.” They are acutely aware that U.S. authorities will not hold them until they are adjudicated, Cabrera said, and until that changes, they will continue to come.
Witnesses agreed that violence, instability and corruption are another root cause.
“How far are we away from having low enough levels of corruption and a strong enough rule of law to actually provide the type of economic activity to provide the opportunities that are really lacking in Central America?” Johnson asked Casas-Zamora, a senior fellow and program director in the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program for Inter-American Dialogue. He added, “I don’t think it’s good for Central America that those individuals that actually want to seek opportunity flow out of the country. I think the goal of our policy should be to stop the flow.”
“The short answer is [we are] very far from that,” Casas-Zamora responded.
Johnson cited Casas-Zamora’s earlier testimony about the importance to Central America of remittances from citizens who have gone to the United States. “That’s a pretty powerful incentive to have more people leave to take advantage of the wage differential, take advantage of this land of opportunity, to fund their economy,” Johnson said.
“That’s one of the crucial questions here. It is a powerful incentive,” Casas-Zamora said. “The only way to counter that is to generate alternative sources of opportunity in the country. To tell you the truth, that’s not easy.”
“That requires the rule of law,” Johnson replied.
“They’re losing their best and their brightest, and it’s tragic,” said Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, testifying on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Also testifying at the hearing was Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“The good news is we actually share the same goal — we all want everybody to have the opportunity to build a good life for themselves and their families,” Johnson said after the hearing. “There’s not one party that has a monopoly on compassion, and I think we saw that here today.”
Chairman Johnson’s opening statement can be found here.
The full hearing can be viewed here.

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