Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) linked the deadly ISIS attack on a Moscow music hall Friday to US-Mexico border policy, a key issue for Republicans ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
On ABC’s “This Week,” Rubio, the vice head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it’s “common sense” that a for-profit people-smuggling business with claimed ties to ISIS will “most certainly use [their network] to move operatives into the US.”
Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, testified before Congress last year that since at least 1975, no one in the United States has suffered injuries or lost their life in a terrorist attack by someone who entered the country illegally.
According to Nowrasteh, the only three people known to have illegally entered the country through the US-Mexico border and been convicted of terrorism-related charges are Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka, and Shain Duka, who entered as young children in 1984 and were arrested in 2007.
Regardless, the purported linkages between prospective terrorist activities and illegal crossings on the southern border have become essential to the border policy debate.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens told CBS News in an interview that, while the Border Patrol apprehends approximately 2 million people who unlawfully cross the border each year, he is most concerned about the 140,000 people who successfully enter the nation.
That’s despite Owens’ Border Patrol being the most successful in history, with a 91.3% apprehension rate in December, according to a Cato Institute examination of official numbers.
This is the highest recorded apprehension rate since 2006. In November of that year, the Border Patrol captured only 54.1% of the people it observed crossing the border, and the agency’s sensor network was far less sophisticated.
Before 2006, experts estimated that there were up to 3 million successful attempts to evade the Border Patrol each year, dating back to the 1970s.
“The evidence that terrorists are crossing the border is of such poor quality that we can fairly dismiss much of it. According to Nowrasteh’s testimony to the subcommittee on immigration integrity, security, and enforcement in August, foreign-born terrorists attempting to cross the US-Mexico border pose a manageable threat. However, the future remains uncertain.
Nonetheless, Rubio, who has been mentioned as a possible White House running mate for former President Trump, emphasized that, however remote, the threat exists.
“I’m not claiming there’s an imminent threat to the U.S., but I am saying that the border situation and the existence of that network are a threat to the United States,” he told reporters.
Gunmen attacked the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Friday, killing at least 137 people. The Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack.
