The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee is subpoenaing the Department of Homeland Security to demand that it release more information about immigrants with potential terrorism links who have crossed the southern border into the U.S.
The subpoena follows NBC News reporting on an Afghan migrant on the terrorist watchlist who was released inside the U.S. by Border Patrol, an Uzbek man who crossed the border and was arrested in Baltimore by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for potential links to the Islamic State terrorist group and over 400 migrants brought into the U.S. by an ISIS-linked human smuggling organization.
Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., said the new reports — as well as news that eight Tajik men with alleged ties to ISIS-K were arrested in the U.S. — led the committee to ask for more information.
“We know individuals on the terror watchlist are apprehended. We have some that get released in the country. We want to know the details of how they’re handling that,” Green told NBC News.
The subpoena asks for all available derogatory information about every migrant on the known or suspected terrorist watchlist who has been stopped at the southern border and whether they have been released, detained or deported.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attached to the subpoena, Green said the reviews of information DHS has provided the committee have been insufficient. After a briefing the committee received in November, members pushed for more information about the migrants with terrorism ties who crossed the southwest border, but DHS said it could not share that information without approval from the FBI, Green said in the letter. Later, he wrote, DHS’ Office of Legislative Affairs told the committee the agency could not provide more than it had already shared.
“Despite over a year of follow ups and accommodating the Department’s protracted schedules and insufficient attempts to respond to some of the requests,” Green said in the letter, “the Committee’s requests largely remain unsatisfied and are 409 days delinquent with no definitive timeline for production. The Department’s demonstrated approach to indefinitely protract production necessitates issuance of the enclosed subpoena.”
Green chaired committee hearings this year that led to the impeachment of Mayorkas, and he has disagreed with virtually every tenet of the Biden administration’s immigration policy. He said he does not expect the subpoena to spark change in border policies but wants to use any new information to shine a light on what he says is a terrorist threat emerging from illegal immigration at the border.
“At least we’re showing you what’s going on. That’s the best thing I can probably do right here,” Green said.
NBC News reported in late June that about 0.014% of migrants who had tried to cross the border in fiscal year 2024, or fewer than 2 out of every 10,000, were on the terrorist watchlist. The total number who have tried to cross during the Biden administration is just over 1,700. During the Trump presidency, it was 1,400.
The subpoena would be enforced by the Justice Department. According to Green, DHS has not responded sufficiently to two past subpoenas from the committee.
