In House floor remarks prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) sounded the alarm about terror threats who are coming through the U.S. border.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 historic achievements today.
00:02 Mr. Speaker, I also rise as a New York City
00:07 representative in a post 9/11 world to talk about how concerned I am that our border is not secure.
00:15 Since Joe Biden took office, CBP has encountered at least
00:19 340 individuals on the terrorist watch list along the southern border or in our interior.
00:25 I just want to give you some examples. An Afghan migrant on the terror watch list spent nearly one year inside the United States after
00:32 he was apprehended and released by CBP agents in March of 2023.
00:36 He was processed at the border, CBP released him without alerting ICE officials about potential
00:42 terrorism ties, and he was free to fly domestically in the United States.
00:47 He was arrested in February 2024, then released by immigration judge in March, who was not told that he was a national security
00:55 risk. Last month, an illegal immigrant from
00:58 Lebanon caught at the border admitted to CBP that he was a member of Hezbollah and was headed to New York to try to make
01:05 a bomb. In February of 2024, ICE apprehended another terrorist who was allowed to roam in the U.S. for nearly a year
01:12 after crossing the border illegally, and the terrorist was a member of Al-Shahab
01:18 that was only arrested after ICE became aware of his threat to national security.
01:24 In February, a Colombian man on the terror watch list was caught crossing into Eagle Pass area. In
01:30 August of last year, it was discovered that a smuggler with ISIS ties helped more than a dozen Uzbek
01:36 migrants into the United States over the southern border. And in April
01:41 2021, CBP announced that they arrested two Yemeni men on the terror watch list in separate incidents as they attempted to illegally cross the southern
01:49 border in
01:50 California, and they were both on no-fly lists. Again, we've caught at least
01:55 340 individuals either at the border or in the interior, but the more concerning number is who did we not catch?
02:03 We know that nearly 2 million people
02:06 estimated by CBP have entered this country without any, any encounter by government or law enforcement.
02:15 We don't know who they are, where they are, or what their intentions are, and that comes down to about 800 individuals a day.
02:22 We need to secure our border, particularly with growing threats from Iran who said they want to commit attack on our own soil,
02:31 Russia, China, and if we're going to send our allies money, which we should support our allies,
02:36 we need to ensure that our own homeland is secure against these threats as
02:42 well. Even the FBI director is
02:45 confirming that joint terrorism task forces and all 56 of FBI's field offices are
02:52 occupied with threats coming across our border. It's
02:56 unconscionable to me that the president refuses to reverse any of his 60-plus, more than 60, border
03:04 policies that he changed via executive order, and
03:08 unconscionable to me that Senator Schumer refuses to work with us to force the president, because the president has discretion, right?
03:16 He put these policies in place to begin with, he can reverse them.
03:19 Senator Schumer should work with us to force the president to reverse these policies, and I believe our speaker
03:26 needs to go back to Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and say if we're going to pass foreign aid,
03:33 we must have at least, at least, a few
03:37 common-sense
03:39 border protection measures in there, and I don't think it's that hard to ask from Republicans or Democrats to say at least let's prohibit
03:47 individuals who are gangs, terrorists, or criminals from entering into this country. Thank you. I yield back.