By Jennie Taer
Published Oct. 11, 2024, 1:30 p.m. ET
Federal authorities have deported some of the eight Tajik migrants suspected of having ties to ISIS and plotting at least one US attack before being rounded up in New York and two other cities.
The squad of terror suspects from Tajikistan crossed the US southern border, some illegally — and others using the Biden-Harris administration’s CBP One phone app.
“In close coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), these individuals were detained in June, have remained in ICE custody since then, and either have already been removed from the United States or remain in ICE custody pending completion of their removal proceedings,” a Department of Homeland Security rep said in a statement.
“The arrest and removal of these individuals demonstrates the successful collaboration and partnership between DHS and FBI to disrupt and dismantle potential national security threats,” the representative said.
The DHS would not say exactly how many of the accused terrorists — who had not previously been on any US terror watchlist — were booted so far or what country or countries took them.
A Homeland Security source said this is how the system should work — although too often, it doesn’t.
“Because they’re part of a terrorist organization, the agency doesn’t want that liability,” he said of the recently deported suspects. “Sadly, no one cares about a rapist being free.”
The source added that even if a migrant has no criminal record, if they crossed the border illegally, they should be booted.
“ICE should remove all illegal aliens regardless of criminal record — not just certain people for political reasons,” the source said.
The source said the agency is still hunting down more members of the alleged ISIS-tied group. It wasn’t clear whether they include anyone who illegally crossed the border to get into the US.
The eight were nabbed in the Big Apple, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
During the multistate sting, authorities wiretapped one of the suspects, who had been talking about bombs, sources previously said. The group had been discussing targeting “infidels” in the US.
It was later discovered that the group planned an attack on an unnamed LGBTQ establishment in the City of Brotherly Love, a congressional source has told The Post.
Before the arrests, FBI Director Chris Wray warned that ISIS could be taking advantage of the open southern border and told lawmakers of the possibility of a “coordinated attack” that could take place on US soil after an ISIS-K attack on a concert hall in Moscow — carried out by citizens of Tajikistan — killed 145 people and wounded hundreds more.
“Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home,” Wray told a House Appropriations subcommittee at the time.
“But now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall a couple weeks ago,” Wray said.
He also earlier warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that the bureau was aware of a human smuggling operation with ties to terrorists from ISIS-affiliated groups that had been operating at the southern border.
“I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating,” the FBI director said in response to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
“Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation,” he added.
The bureau had also been investigating a Turkish ISIS-tied smuggler who had helped dozens of Uzbek migrants cross the southern border, CNN reported in August.
As illegal immigration into the US has surged to record levels in recent years, so too has the number of terror suspects caught at the US-Mexico border.
Border agents caught 382 migrants whose names appeared on the US terror watch list between fiscal years 2021 and August 2024, compared to 11 in fiscal years 2017 through 2020, according to federal data.
But some have been able to slip through the cracks — again and again.
One of those terror suspects whose name was on the watchlist but was still able to get through was Mohammad Kharwin, 48. He crossed the California border illegally in March 2023 and was freed into the US before his suspected terror ties were discovered.
It took nearly a year for the FBI to notify ICE of his alleged membership in the US-designated foreign terror group Hezb-e-Islami and for him to be nabbed.13
Kharwin was finally arrested in February — but was again set free by a judge who had not been informed of his suspected terror affiliation. Authorities scrambled and rearrested him.
Border Patrol agents also caught and released a 27-year-old Somali national in March 2023, who has not been identified by name but who was later found to be a “confirmed member of al Shabaab,” a designated terror organization, ICE earlier admitted.
The man, who was said to be “involved in the use, manufacture or transportation of explosives or firearms,” had been in the US for nearly a year before ICE was able to nab him in Minnesota.
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