‘How Did The Dept Miss That?’: Pfluger Presses Official After 8 Men Tied To ISIS Detained At Border

3 months ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) questioned Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein about the threats from southern border.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Undersecretary Weinstein. I thank you for your testimony,

00:07again for your service. The members of our subcommittee may have some additional questions

00:13and we will basically go side by side and ask initial questions. If we have

00:21additional questions, then we'll submit those in writing to you.

00:26I now recognize myself for opening questions.

00:34I'll start with the southern border, and as we've talked about a couple of times,

00:40the fact that we've had from fiscal year, from the beginning of fiscal year 2021 through present

00:47date, over 360 individuals who've entered this country that in some way, shape, or form match

00:54the terror watch list. What I want to start by asking is, what is INA doing

01:04and how is that being reorganized to better know those individuals and whether or not

01:13we're detaining them? I think the recent arrest of or detainment of eight Tajik nationals who

01:20had ties to ISIS, as reported by DHS, highlights and frames this particular question. Can you walk

01:25us through what INA is doing in this situation? No, thank you, sir. And as we discussed, and by

01:31the way, thank you for the phone call the other day. That was a very fruitful discussion. But as

01:36we discussed, that is a major focus of obviously DHS and INA, that being the border and who's

01:41coming across the border. We have at DHS a very strong screening and vetting capability and the

01:49whole intent of that is to identify people who might be a threat to the United States and prevent

01:53them from getting in here, either getting a visa, coming across the border, or if they're here and

01:58we learn about that derogatory information, which we're constantly trying to develop, whether they're

02:02here or not, that we pick them up and we neutralize that threat. INA plays a very important role in

02:10that effort. We obviously are generating intelligence on a regular basis, looking for

02:14threats and threat actors. We also are centrally involved in the screening and vetting operation.

02:21We actually do a lot of the support for the National Vetting Center that is the sort of the

02:28intermediary that makes sure that the information from our national security elements relating to

02:34people who might be encountered on the border gets into the vetting process and we provide a lot of

02:41the technical support as well as the training for that. We also do a number of other things that are

02:46very focused on the border, such as we're involved in providing nominations to the TOC, the Transnational

02:53Organized Crime Watch List. As you know, there is a watch list for TOC, as there was, as we've

03:00had for 20 some years for terrorism. We nominate, based on information we get from our state and local

03:05partners, individuals for that watch list based on our intelligence work. That's another area.

03:12And then, you know, as we said, in terms of proactive intelligence collection, we are focusing our

03:18interview efforts on the border against the threat of people. How did the department on this

03:23particular issue, because these folks as reported came in, eight Tajik nationals came in in January,

03:30so I think it leads everyone to believe that probably 362 is at the very low end of the

03:36number. If there were eight people who'd been in the country for, call it five to six months, and

03:40then we found them. How did the department miss that, and then how did the department catch that,

03:46and what are we doing to make sure that that never happens again?

03:50Well, as I think you know, colleagues of ours from DHS are going to be giving you a classified

03:55briefing, I believe, right after the recess, and most of this is very sensitive and classified, so

04:01I'm very limited what I can say on the record, but I think it is clear that when those individuals

04:07came across the border and were encountered, there was no derogatory information that came

04:12to the attention of the people on the border at that time. The derogatory information came to

04:16light later on. I can say, without getting into the specifics of the work done after they got here,

04:23that I think you've heard from the FBI and others, there was unprecedented cooperation between

04:27DHS and the FBI in working the situation. Beyond that, I think I'd have to defer to my colleagues

04:36who will give a classified briefing on this, but it has been a joint effort between us and

04:42our law enforcement friends at the FBI. When Director Wray sat here and testified in front of

04:47our committee last, he talked about the threat level being exceedingly high and used some

04:54specific words to describe that he doesn't believe that it's ever been higher. Do you think

05:00that we are in a period, do you agree with that statement that he says, and then is there a

05:06black swan event, is there some sort of event that keeps you up at night, that INA is focused on

05:13trying to communicate, cooperate, and help between state, local, tribal, federal, all the different

05:20levels? Well, let me start with the latter part of your question. INA is very much involved in

05:26the terrorism fight, and we are focused on the whole range of terrorism threats that we face.

05:32And then to the first part of your question, is this a time of unique threat? You know,

05:36every time when you look at it, you think it's like a unique level of threat, but we are at a

05:42very fraught time, especially after October 7th, because October 7th sort of energized so many

05:49threat vectors from so many different places and bad actors, and is mobilizing potential terrorists

05:56from a variety of different perspectives. That, in addition to what was already a standing threat

06:03of terrorism, both traditional foreign terrorism threats, but also domestic violent extremism that

06:08we've seen. So the overlay of the sort of sustained raised threat from October 7th, on top

06:16of what, as we said in our threat assessment last year, was already a heightened threat, does make

06:20this a particularly precarious time in our nation's history. Thank you. My initial time has expired. I

06:26now recognize the ranking member for his round of questioning.

‘How Did The Dept Miss That?’: Pfluger Presses Official After 8 Men Tied To ISIS Detained At Border

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