Republican Senators such as Marco Rubio (R-FL), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others, have penned a letter to notify the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the dangers of an open southern border and the potential national security risks because of it. The letter argues that the United States has completely lost control of the border crisis, and that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda could become a beneficiary to that circumstance.
This is what the Rubio press release regarding the letter stated:
“The crisis at the southern border is a result of President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to control illegal immigration. With migrant encounters at a record high including at least 56 individuals apprehended at the southern border in the last nine months that were on the Terrorist Screening Database. America’s borders are dangerously exposed to terrorists groups, including al-Qaeda.”
The Senators would go on to ask Mayorkas for his plan to fix the border situation.
“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, our border is not secure. We have lost complete operational control of the southern border, and it serves as a calling card for terrorists everywhere. Accordingly, it is imperative that you report to us about your plan to secure the border against terrorist infiltration. The presence of Zawahiri in Kabul in such a brazen fashion should be a “five alarm fire” for the Biden Administration. The refusal to fix our broken asylum system, the reimplementation of catch and release, the abandonment of Remain in Mexico, and other policy choices by the Biden Administration have acted as pull factors which directly led to a virtual invasion by illegal immigrants. It is only a matter of time until terrorists and other transnational criminal organizations take full advantage of these vulnerabilities.”
In the end, the Senators ask the Security Secretary to “reverse course” on the policies that have made their way to the field and have ended up being known by some as an “invasion.”