The Biden administration is scrambling to prevent migrants from crossing the border from ISIS recruiting hotbeds being released into the U.S., even as hundreds of migrants have already flown in so far this year.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have received orders in recent weeks not to release any immigrants from Tajikistan from custody unless they are interviewed by intelligence officials first, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) source told The Post.
A former Homeland Security official told The Washington Post that the new order is an attempt to lift the lid on the arrests of eight Tajik nationals in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia on suspicion of ties to ISIS, which The Post previously reported.
“It looks like the damage has already been done, so I’m glad they’re trying to do what they can after the fact. Bottom line: they’d be a lot safer if they reversed Trump’s policies, secured the border, got away from the catch-and-release approach,” said Tom Homan, a former acting director of ICE.
More than 1,500 Tajik migrants are known to have crossed the southern border between October 2020 and May 2024, according to leaked border data obtained by The Washington Post.
At least 500 Tajiks have been stopped so far this year.
Over the past 14 years, only 26 Tajiks have been caught trying to cross the border.
It is unclear how many of these migrants have been released into the U.S., but before President Biden’s “crackdown” on the border last month, the vast majority of migrants were given court dates and then released.
The new order from ICE leadership adds Tajikistan to the agency’s list of “high threat countries,” meaning migrants must be held for security screening if they are released into the U.S., a Homeland Security source said.
“The rule of thumb for this administration is to let anyone in and then try to vet them after the fact,” said Charles Marino, a former senior law enforcement adviser at the Department of Homeland Security.
“That goes against common sense.”
Marino said it would be very difficult to effectively vet Tajik nationals or anyone from Central Asia without them being visible to U.S. counterterrorism investigators.
Most of the migrants “will become ghosts” and there will be no records available, he said.
Former ICE chief of staff John Fehr said the Biden administration was creating a “last line of defense situation” and that the federal government should have blocked Tajiks from entering the U.S. altogether and ordered them to seek asylum in countries closer to their home countries.
Federal officials have said the United States is in an “elevated” threat environment, and FBI Director Chris Wray has publicly warned of the possibility of “coordinated attacks” in the United States following the ISIS-K attack carried out by a Tajik national at a Moscow concert hall on March 22, which killed 145 people and injured hundreds more.
Tajikistan, which borders China and Afghanistan, is a major recruiting base for ISIS and its affiliate, ISIS-K.
Wray also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about concerns over a human trafficking operation on the southern border believed to be linked to ISIS. After Wray’s testimony, it emerged that more than 400 migrants had been brought to the US through the operation, but that about 50 remain at large.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 372 migrants whose names were on terrorism watch lists between October 2020 and May 2024, according to federal data.
From fiscal 2017 to 2020, only 11 cases were uncovered.
ICE did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
