Cases of suspected terrorists who tried to enter the US through Mexico tripled

United States media warned that so far in 2022, border patrol agents from that country have detained at least 50 suspected members of terrorist groups, who tried to cross through Mexico, taking advantage of the migratory chaos that was unleashed in recent years.

For the immigration authorities, this figure represents an alarm because in the entire fiscal year of 2021 they only registered 15 cases and in 2020, only three, which indicates that extremist groups found Mexico an accessible route to try to enter the United States. mingling among the thousands of people from Central America.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich believes terror suspects are trying to take advantage of the chaotic situation at the border, posing a danger to their country’s national security.

“These are not people who come here because they want to work in a hotel or restaurant,” Brnovich said in an interview with Fox News, adding that they are clearly taking advantage of the crisis at the border to try to create damage inside the United States.

“These are people who are clearly using this crisis, this lack of border security to jeopardize our national security. And that is why we are seeing these unprecedented numbers,” said the prosecutor.

The US Department of Homeland Security notes that the main threat related to terrorism comes from lone attackers or small cells which are motivated by a variety of violent extremist ideologies.

In March, Republican legislators James Comer and John Katko urged the Department of Homeland Security, headed by Alejandro Mayorkas, to make public the number of migrants who were detained at the border with Mexico and whose names appear in the terrorism database of the FBI.

“Reports indicate that several people with terrorist ties have recently been apprehended after illegally crossing the border and that such encounters may be increasing,” the lawmakers said in the document.

In addition, they pointed out that last December, Border Patrol agents in the Yuma sector of Arizona arrested a 21-year-old citizen of Saudi Arabia who is linked to a Yemeni terrorist group.

General Glen VanHerck, head of the Northern Command, assured at the beginning of this year before the US Senate that the Russian army has deployed its largest number of spies in Mexico, and that they take advantage of the instability generated by the drug cartels to operate against the government of Joe Biden.

The North American general explained that Russia has one of its largest embassies in the American continent in the Mexican capital, which serves as a base of operations for this espionage network.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, these terrorist actors seek to exacerbate social friction in the United States to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could inspire acts of violence.

In response, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied such accusations with the argument that Mexico is not a colony of Russia, China, or the United States.

“We are not going to Moscow to spy on anyone, nor are we going to Beijing to spy on what they are doing in China, nor are we going to Washington, not even Los Angeles, we do not get involved in that,” said the Mexican Executive.

Although China worries the United States as a rival in economic matters, the Russian case raises alarm among some military commanders within the US because they relate it to an alleged intervention in favor of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

The Military Command of the North Atlantic Organization (NATO) considers that Washington should not delay any longer in responding to the request made by President Zelensky to Joe Biden for the United States to include Russia in the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

The qualification is the harshest measure in condemnation by Washington and entails very negative legal consequences for the countries accused of favoring terrorism. When this measure is executed, it configures an extreme message that the United States carries out against countries that it considers enemies.

According to data from the Border Patrol and Customs, May was the month with the highest number of people detained while trying to enter US soil illegally, as agents secured 239,416 migrants.

In almost 69% of the cases, they are single individuals, which is why the arrival of families and unaccompanied minors has decreased. When analyzing this data, it was found that a large percentage already had a previous arrest in the last 12 months for trying to cross the border illegally.

These data have been used by the Republican sector to exert pressure against President Joe Biden and his immigration policy, which they consider lax compared to the iron control imposed by Donald Trump.

The Republicans try to keep the application of Title 42 in force, which takes as a justification the health risk due to the Covid-19 pandemic to expressly expel undocumented immigrants detained at the Mexican border, thus restricting the number of asylum applications.

Along with this regulation, border agents carry out detentions under Title 8, which takes longer because it entails the legal obligation to apply a questionnaire to undocumented immigrants to determine if there is a credible reason of risk in case of deportation to their places of origin.

Figures from the Republican party, such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, have severely criticized the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for his negligence in combating organized crime groups, which has unleashed a greater migratory flow to the United States, a situation that opens an opportunity for extremist groups to enter that country.

Despite the public differences that the governments of Biden and López Obrador have maintained, both nations have declared that they will coordinate to channel resources and investments to the Central American region to boost the economy of those countries, with the hope of reducing the migratory waves. mainly from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

During the Summit of the Americas, President Joe Biden announced an ambitious investment plan throughout the continent to generate sustained growth that helps alleviate social inequality, one of the main reasons people emigrate.

It should be noted that more than 200 people have been killed in the United States by mass shootings this year while no American has been killed by foreign terrorism on US soil this year. Overall, more than 15,000 people have been killed in the US since the beginning of this year by guns. The biggest threat of terrorism in the US is American-born right-wing extremists, according to the Department of Homeland Security.