On May 28, NBC News reported that the Biden administration will be scrapping a 2004 directive that inhibits the ability of DHS officers to take enforcement action against known or suspected aliens based on secure and classified information.
The terrorist attacks did not dissuade President Bush from honoring his vow which brings me to an October 4, 2004, memo from then-DHS Secretary Tom Ridge to, among others, the heads of CBP, USCIS, and ICE, captioned "Department of Homeland Security Guidelines for the Use of Classified Information in Immigration Proceedings".
Given the surge in migrants entering the United States illegally on the terrorist watchlist, and warnings by the FBI director that recent Hamas attacks in Israel could inspire terrorist actors in the United States, it's incumbent on Congress to get to the bottom of what's happening - and to assess whether those guidelines are impeding national security.
Five months later, in April, NBC News revealed that Border Patrol had released Mohammad Kharwin, a 48-year-old Afghan national apprehended on March 10, 2023, after he allegedly entered the United States illegally near San Ysidro, Calif. Though agents had suspicions that Kharwin was on the terror watchlist, they "Lacked corroborating information" to confirm that he was the person on the list.
The good news is that the outlet reports that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a new memo, which hasn't been publicly released, on May 9 that overrides the 2004 Ridge memo.
The bad news is that we have no idea how many of the 347 other terror watchlist aliens apprehended at the Southwest border since FY 2022 were released under the 2004 directive before the administration realized that it had a major national-security risk on its hands.
NBC News implicitly credits its earlier reporting on the Kharwin case for the policy switch on the Ridge memo, explaining that two unnamed DHS officials "Did not comment on whether the NBC News report had a role in prompting the change in classified information policy".
https://cis.org/Arthur/NBC-News-Admin-Scrapping-2004-Directive-Hobbles-DHS-Terrorist-Enforcement
No comments:
Post a Comment