Mayorkas denies report that 400 migrants linked to ISIS-affiliated network
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied reporting by NBC News about 400 migrants linked to an ISIS-affiliated group who got into the U.S. in recent years.
“That reporting is incorrect,” Mayorkas said Wednesday in Tuscon, Ariz. “We do not have identified 400 people with potential ISIS ties.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) labeled more than 400 Central Asian and other migrants that got into the U.S. within three years ago as “subjects of concern” due to being taken in via a human smuggling network connected to ISIS, officials said to NBC News.
“And lemme, again, assure you, that individuals who are identified to have those ties would pose a concern to us from a public safety… security perspective, and they would be priorities for detention and removal,” Mayorkas continued.
Per the NBC News reporting, officials said that more than 150 of the 400 have been arrested, but that 50 are not yet located.
Mayorkas’ denial about the NBC reporting comes at a time in which the DHS and Mayorkas are facing heat from Republicans and even some in his own party on the issue of border security. He was impeached earlier this year via a House Republican effort and accused of not going ahead with “action to fulfill his statutory duty to control the border” in articles of impeachment.
“Alejandro Mayorkas deserves to be impeached, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to do so,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement following the vote to impeach.
The Hill has reached out to NBC News and DHS.