There’s been a lot of people from the Middle East caught this week on both sides of the southern border, whether in Honduras, Arizona or Texas. The worry is that Muslim terrorists are crossing the border now to test where they get caught and where they don’t. As one Immigration expert says, it’s likely that terrorists have already gotten through the border because the border patrol only catches a fraction of those who cross:
It’s just a matter of time before we get hit:
FOX NEWS – Two separate reports of groups of America-bound Syrians detained below the U.S. southern border and the arrests of six other Middle Eastern men nabbed with smugglers in Arizona in recent days are raising concerns that Islamic State militants could be probing security – and stoking fears some may already be here.
On Monday, five Pakistani nationals and one Afghan were nabbed in Arizona along with two suspected smugglers, a Department of Homeland Security official confirmed. Then, on Tuesday, Honduran authorities arrested five Syrians they said were headed for the U.S. with stolen or doctored Greek passports, but later said the men were college students fleeing war at home. On the same day and 1,800 miles north, two Syrian families were taken into custody at a border checkpoint in Texas.
“Members of two Syrian families, two men, two women and four children, presented themselves at a port of entry in Laredo,” a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told FoxNews.com Thursday. “They were taken into custody by CBP and turned over to ICE for further processing.”
Although sources said it did not appear the Syrians nabbed at the U.S. border were trying to sneak in, word spread among Border Patrol agents, whose union leaders warned them to be extra vigilant.
“Our agents have heard about Syrians being apprehended in the area from other federal agents,” Border Patrol agent and National Border Patrol Council Local 2455 President Hector Garza told Breitbart news service, adding that the union “will be issuing an officer safety bulletin advising Border Patrol agents to exercise extra precautions as they patrol the border.”
On Monday, the six men from Pakistan and Afghanistan were caught after making it across the border.
“U.S. Border Patrol agents in Sonoita, Ariz., apprehended five Pakistani nationals and one Afghan national Monday,” a DHS spokeswoman said, adding that their identities were checked against law enforcement and national security related databases, revealing no “derogatory information.”
All six are in federal custody.”
While authorities in both the U.S. and Honduras dismissed any threat posed by the Tuesday incidents, both the U.S. southern and northern borders are ripe for exploitation by terror groups, according to immigration experts.
“We know that terrorist groups look for the weakest link, or any way they can gain entry,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for Center for Immigration Studies. “It is likely that terrorists have already managed to get through. The Border Patrol catches only a fraction of the people who try to cross illegally, perhaps 40 or 50 percent. They have already caught a number of aliens from countries associated with terrorism, but we can’t be confident they have caught everyone who has tried.