The Department of Homeland Security watchdog found that at least one Border Patrol office failed to adequately screen aliens with possible links to terrorism because the agency did not have a consistent policy under the Biden administration.
A review conducted by Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office found that the Border Patrol Office in San Diego did not have a set policy to deal with so-called Special Interest Aliens (SIAs), which are defined by the department as “a non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests.”
The finding from the DHS watchdog is only the latest evidence of significant deficiencies in the past administration’s handling of the southern border, especially when it came to proper vetting and tracking of immigrants.
The inspector general found that despite other Border Patrol offices on the southern border successfully developing screening policies for SIAs, the San Diego office failed to do so.
No agency-wide policy was in place
The watchdog squarely blamed the wider Customs and Border Protection agency for the failure because it had not promulgated a uniform policy for the screening of such aliens.
“In July 2023, CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) San Diego Field Office and the U.S. Border Patrol (Border Patrol) Yuma and El Centro sectors had a process to identify and provide additional screening of SIAs, yet San Diego sector did not,” the inspector general wrote. “This inconsistency occurred because CBP did not have an agency-wide policy stating whether to identify aliens from certain countries as SIAs,” the watchdog added.
Because San Diego lacked a sufficient vetting process, the inspector general found “aliens from countries with links to terrorism entered at least one CBP region that did not provide additional screening.”
You can read the report below:
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No country-specific screening published
The inspector general initiated its review to evaluate Customs and Border Protection’s screening of “Central Asian aliens” who entered the country via “smuggling networks” from June to October 2023, the report says.
It is unclear what countries the watchdog is referring to because the specific characteristics of the aliens are redacted. However, several countries in Central Asia are home to terrorist activity, including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Hellbound and Down 