FBI Director Christopher Wray testified on Monday before the Senate Intelligence Committee about dangerous individuals who are crossing the southern border into the United States amid the ongoing influx of unlawful migrants.
When questioned by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) about such threats, Wray confirmed that the FBI has been seeing “a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border.”
“And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that’s just on the fentanyl side,” said Wray, per Fox News.
“An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl,” he added.
The committee hearing comes in the wake of reports that University of Georgia student Laken Riley was allegedly killed by an unlawful migrant whose brother may have had ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
This gang has allegedly been responsible for “recent violent confrontations with law enforcement and civilian victims in New York and elsewhere throughout the United States,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) proceeded to question Wray about a report that large numbers of unlawful migrants have been assisted in their trips to the United States by a Turkish smuggler with ties to ISIS.
Wray said the FBI has become “very concerned about” the allegations, adding that the agency has already begun investigating them.
“We’re very actively investigating, working with DHS on both people whose travel was facilitated but also members of the facilitation network in some other way overseas,” he said, per the New York Post.
Another concern presented by Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS) was the FBI’s ability to accurately track unlawful migrants who cross into the United States and are on the terrorist watchlist.
Wray explained that there are “a few different categories of people that we have concerns about,” and the agency does everything possible to manage those who cross.
“When a known or suspected terrorist — as in known, that they’re a known or suspected terrorist — is apprehended at the border, I’m confident in the vast majority of instances there’s very close lash-up between FBI and DHS on it,” he added, as reported by Newsweek.
“The bigger concern is a situation, for example, where somebody presents fake identification documents at the border, and there’s not biometrics to match up — so there’s no way to be able to know that they’re not who they say they are. Then, they get into the country; then somehow we find out that they’re someone, in fact, who’s on the list,” he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 7.5 million encounters with unlawful migrants since President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
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