Speaking from West Palm Beach on his birthday, June 14, former President Donald Trump went on the attack against former President Joe Biden over Biden’s border disaster, accusing the current president of “providing material support for terrorism” by not shutting down the border. Trump’s comments came in the context of eight ISIS-connected illegal immigrants being caught across the country.
As background, the same week as Trump’s speech saw eight Tajiks arrested in New York. Los Angeles, and Philadelphia for their ISIS ties. All eight had crossed into the United States from Mexico, trudging across the southern border. Shockingly, all eight were stopped at the border, screened, and then let in anyway, with investigators only discovering their ISIS ties later.
The FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a joint statement on the matter, saying, “The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.” Their release continued, “As the FBI and DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the US has been in a heightened threat environment.”
Despite these eight being caught, many on the right saw the incident and wondered how many other ISIS-connected individuals, or people connected to other terror groups or hostile countries, crossed the border and were not caught, and now remain in the United States, potentially ready to strike when given the order by their handlers.
Among those who used the incident to call out Biden’s border policies was former President Donald Trump. Speaking on his birthday, Trump accused Biden of providing “material support for terrorism,” saying, “So, in addition to all of his other well-documented offenses, crooked Joe Biden is now also guilty of providing material support for terrorism.”
He continued, calling out the terror issue, “Under Biden, there’s been a 3,000% increase in the number of people on the terror watchlist crossing into our country from the southern border – 3,000%. And that comes from the Border Patrol. Our country is going to pay a steep price for many, many years. This is a terrible thing that’s happened.”
The phrase “material support for terrorism” was probably included because it is a crime under US law. As the DOJ provides, “The Antiterrorism Act also created 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, which makes it unlawful, within the United States, or for any person who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States anywhere, to knowingly provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization that has been designated by the Secretary of State.”
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FBI Director Christopher Wray, commenting on the matter of terrorists crossing the border in a recent hearing, said, “So certainly, we have seen over the last 5 to 6 years an increase in the number of known or suspected terrorists, in other words, watch-listed subjects attempting to cross the border. And that is of concern.”
Continuing, Director Wray said, “The bigger problem, in my view, is twofold. One, individuals who, when they come in, are either armed with fake documents or snuck in some way or – or, and this is very important, individuals for whom there’s not enough derogatory information in the intelligence community to watch list them yet.”