An illegal Iranian immigrant whose name is on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) was apprehended and detained at the southern border after being discovered hidden in a car trunk.
As part of Operation Lone Star, which is administered by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Alireza Heidari, 29, was detained last week near Val Verde, Texas; he was traveling in a vehicle with four other illegal immigrants, according to Fox News.
According to Fox News, they made many calls to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) starting on last Thursday and continuing throughout the weekend. It wasn’t until Tuesday, however, that DHS sent them to the FBI. The FBI reportedly declined to comment, according to Fox News.
“If it was’nt for the work of Gov. Abbott as well as Texas DPS, Alireza Heidari would still be at large on our streets today and would be looking to do harm to the US and our fellow citizens,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. He noted that Texas DPS, not the US Border Patrol, made the arrest. “Heidari violated immigration laws and eluded capture by the Border Patrol. Biden keeps on playing politics with the security and safety of our friends, children, and neighbors, thus it fell to Texas DPS to carry out our duties. The most recent evidence that what Biden is doing is risky is Heidari’s arrest by a non-federal law enforcement agency.”
98 people on the terror watch list were apprehended between ports of entry in fiscal year 2022 as opposed to 15 in fiscal year 2021 and three in fiscal year 2020. In December, 17 people on the terror watch list were taken into custody.
U.S. Customs and Protection reports that 38 individuals who were either known terrorists, suspected terrorists, or their accomplices were detained at the border between Oct. 1 and Jan. 23 last year.
Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, about 1.2 million “gotaways,” or illegal immigrants who were discovered but not captured, have entered the country legally.
The House Committee on Homeland Security said on Jan. 23: “While the Biden admin. feebly seeks to shift blame for the catastrophic crisis at our Southwestern border, warring cartels are transforming the U.S.-Mexican border into a warzone, an unprecedented number of persons that are on the terrorist watchlists are trying to cross the border, and so all semblance of law and order has now been lost. The CBP reported the most migrant interactions in a single month on record in Dec. 2022 as a result of President Biden’s risky and careless policies.”
