The Biden administration has reportedly imposed new restrictions on migration into the interior of at least one Central Asian country due to ongoing concerns about terrorism.
The New York Post reported this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been ordered not to release immigrants from Tajikistan without first being interviewed by intelligence officials.
This comes after some citizens of the Central Asian country raised a series of terror-related concerns. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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Migrants walk along the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Lukeville, Arizona, on December 12, 2023. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Last month, federal authorities arrested eight Tajik nationals with ties to the Islamic State in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All eight people entered the country illegally through the southern border, but were not labeled with any derogatory messages during processing.
According to federal sources, the terrorist suspect has been “fully vetted” and there are no indications. Sources said that afterwards suspected terrorist After being released to the United States, the messages were flagged as national security matters, including the men’s ties to the Islamic State.
Since then, Department of Homeland Security In the past few months, more than 400 people have been brought to the United States from countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by ISIS-affiliated smuggling networks.
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A senior Department of Homeland Security source told Fox News last month that more than 150 people have so far been deported, entered deportation proceedings or are currently undergoing additional screening. The sources would not confirm whether or how many people met the terrorist watch list. They acknowledged that a small number of the remaining 50 fugitives “may qualify for terrorism watch lists.”
“There is no intelligence that the remaining personnel pose an imminent threat to the homeland,” the official said.
Sources said the Department of Homeland Security does not believe this was a terrorist act by the Islamic State, but rather a network of immigrants seeking to enter the United States. However, security risks are higher due to their country of origin. Fox was told at the time that border officials were ordered to detain anyone arriving from certain countries or associated with the network for additional scrutiny. The Washington Post report appeared to confirm that Tajik nationals were also included.
Migrants line up at the southern border in San Diego on June 6, 2024. (Fox News)
The crisis at the southern border is now entering its fourth year, although numbers have declined recently.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told Fox News Digital on Wednesday in response to a question about reports of the new restrictions that San Diego has been one of the hotspots for arrivals this year and that the issue was one of the issues under review.
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“The Border Patrol is overwhelmed and not doing enough proper vetting of people coming across our border,” he said in an interview. “I think that’s the number one issue: the safety of the people in our country, who is allowed in, and unfortunately Yeah, we don’t know we don’t know a lot of people [or] their background.
“Our Border Patrol is failing to properly vet people coming across the border. To me, this is a security issue not just for San Diego County, but for the entire country,” he said.
Click here for more coverage of the border security crisis
Federal officials note the difficulty of properly vetting immigrants crossing the border. ICE acting director Patrick Lechleitner recently said that when vetting individuals, “sometimes there is no personal information at all.”
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“It’s very common that there’s nothing, you have nothing. These people have no criminal convictions, no threatening messages or anything. Or these people may come from an area of ​​particular concern but show up later when you When information becomes available later,” He said.
Fox News’ Griff Jenkins contributed to this report.
