(NewsNation) — Republican lawmakers are demanding information from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about immigrants with terrorism ties, citing a recent uptick in apprehensions at the southwest border.
Leaders on the House Oversight, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees sent Mayorkas a letter Friday asking for a list of encounters with migrants who have records in the Federal Terrorist Screening Database since Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Joe Biden took office.
U.S. Border Patrol has recorded 103 apprehensions of individuals on the terror watchlist at the southern border since October — up from 98 during all of last year. All of those people were caught trying to cross the border between ports of entry.
Reps. James Comer, Jim Jordan and Mark Green said in the letter they seek to “understand the extent of the national security risk presented by potential terrorist infiltration and to determine whether DHS ensures detention and removal in all such cases.”
“It is unclear the extent to which actual legal impediments exist to prevent detention and removal of aliens with terrorist ties, as opposed to impediments imposed by the Biden Administration’s misguided policies,” the congressmen state in the letter.
They are asking the Department of Homeland Security to turn over the following records:
- A complete and current copy of the alien file of any alien encountered by USBP agents after January 19, 2021, on the southwest border between ports of entry, with records within the TSDB at the time of their encounter
- All Forms I-213, Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien pertaining to each alien identified in response to request 1
- All documents and communications related to the detention history of each alien identified in response to request 1, including but not limited to all records and related annotations related to detention or custody status for each alien identified in response to request 1 contained within the Enforcement Integrated Database or ENFORCE Alien Removal Module
- All documents and communications related to the present custody status of each alien identified in response to request 1 whose removal from the United States has not yet been effectuated
- All documents and communications related to the disposition of removal proceedings initiated with respect to each alien identified in response to request 1, including but not limited to documentation indicating whether DHS effectuated any final orders of removal issued in those cases
- All documents and communications containing any analysis or estimate of the number of “gotaways” or other individuals who illegally entered the U.S. in between ports of entry without inspection
- All documents and communications containing any reference to a specific national security risk presented by “gotaways” with terrorist ties
- All documents and communications containing any analysis or warning of a heightened national security risk presented by “gotaways” with terrorist ties
Mayorkas was given a deadline of June 2 to produce the documents.
NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley contributed to this report.