Thread: Watch-list suspects raise alert at border (Scary)

Watch-list suspects raise alert at border



Hundreds have tried to get in, but no charges or acts of terrorism YET
By STEWART M. POWELL
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
March 28, 2011, 5:36AM



TERROR SUSPECTS

These numbers provide a glimpse into suspected terrorist enforcement efforts.

• 875: "Special interest aliens" apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol on the southwestern border over past 17 months.

• 739: Suspects from watch-list countries picked up during illegal crossings into Texas over the past five years.

• 35: Countries listed by the U.S. as "special interest" suspected presence or ties to terrorists.

• 24: Terrorist plots unmasked in U.S. over the past two years involving radicalized U.S. citizens or foreign nationals living here.

• 1,200: The number of arriving airline passengers from watch-list nations in the past year interviewed by federal law enforcement.
Federal reports and interviews.




WASHINGTON — Nearly 900 "special interest aliens" from 35 nations with suspected ties to terrorism have been apprehended along the border between Texas and California over the past 17 months, the Lone Star State being the land route of choice, according to a Border Patrol report obtained by the Chronicle.

The arrests include the high-profile case of former Montreal imam Said Jaziri, a native of the watch-list country of Tunisia, who was arrested for unlawful entry by the U.S. Border Patrol near San Diego in January.
Yet none of these recent suspects has faced terror-related charges or carried out a terrorist act, according to senior federal law enforcement officials who have checked government records.

"There are a lot of people crossing the border who came from scary parts of the world," said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "An individual with enough money and enough determination can penetrate our southwestern border and make their way into the United States."
In the past five years, 739 such suspects were nabbed crossing into Texas illegally, according to Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi.
America's single greatest terrorist threat remains al-Qaida-affiliated recruits slipping through 327 airports and other ports of entry with either legal or fraudulent passports the way the 19 suicide hijackers gained entry to carry out the 2001 attacks.

"I'm not aware that anyone who has committed a terrorist act in the United States had crossed the southwest border," a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Chronicle, speaking anonymously. "It's an arduous trip through multiple countries to be smuggled across the southwestern border as opposed to using a passport, getting a visitor's visa and just flying into any airport."
Radicalized volunteers from countries that are not on any watch list also are seen as an ongoing threat, as are self-radicalized U.S. citizens such as accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist charged with a rampage in 2009 that killed 13 and wounded 29.


No credible border threat

Suspects in at least 24 of the 27 terrorist plots unmasked in the U.S. over the last two years have either been radicalized American citizens or foreign nationals residing in the United States.
Hasan was transferred to Fort Hood by the Army in 2009 before scheduled deployment to Afghanistan. Barry Bujol Jr., a U.S. citizen from Hempstead, Texas, was arrested in 2010 for allegedly trying to provide aid and equipment to terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida.
And Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old chemical engineering student from Saudi Arabia, was in Lubbock on a student visa when he was charged in February with attempting to construct a bomb for potential targets, including the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush.
"At this time, the Department of Homeland Security does not have any credible information on terrorist groups operating along the southwest border," said spokesman Matt Chandler.
Yet many Texans remain concerned that prospective terrorists from watch-list countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan could hide among the tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border each year.
An independent analysis by Vanderbilt political science and law professor Carol Swain and Vanderbilt student Saurabh Sharad found a 67 percent increase in arrests of border crossers from suspect nations - up from 213 in 2000 to 355 in 2009.
"A porous U.S.-Mexico border presents an opportunity for terrorists to enter the U.S. undetected," cautions Farenthold, the freshman GOP congressman.

Mark Jones, chairman of Rice University's political science department and a specialist in Latin American studies, says elected officials continue to raise the shadowy specter of terrorists crossing the border in hopes of gaining wider political support against illegal immigration.
It enables politicians to define immigration in terms of protecting national security, Jones said. "It's political theater to say al-Qaida is going to come across if we don't have a secure border."

The intercepted suspects - coupled with an unknown number of border crossers who have evaded arrest - highlight continued pressure on U.S. border security since the pre-9/11 arrest of Ahmed Ressam, an al-Qaida trained operative arrested with a trunkload of explosives in December 1999 as he tried to enter the United States from Canada to carry out a Millennium attack on Los Angeles International Airport.
Vast changes in security have been made since then, but Raymond Clapper, director of national intelligence, readily concedes the nation does not have "an ironclad perfect system - somebody could get through."
Caught, usually deported

Unlike Ressam, who was convicted of terrorism charges in federal court, apprehended "special interest aliens" wind up in the immigration court system leading to expected deportation.
Jaziri, for example, who crossed into the United States from Mexico after Canadian authorities deported him back to his native Tunisia, faces a misdemeanor charge of unlawful entry into the United States. He also is being held as a material witness in a federal case against the Tijuana-based smuggling operation that allegedly received $5,000 to infiltrate him into the United States.

Federal officials, including Jason Pack of the FBI and Barbara Gonzalez of ICE, said they could not make public or did not have available statistics showing the disposition of legal cases against suspects from watch-list countries.
stewart.powell@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 93566.html

It only takes 19 to create disaster. We know that from experience.

Think about the ones who got through.

it only takes one, really, when you think about it.
especially if its just with a biological bomb