Republicans continue to link the terrorist attack in New Orleans with illegal immigration, doubling down on the debunked concept started by President-elect Donald Trump and echoed by other elected officials.
The latest one to join the list in Texas Rep. Randy Weber. Speaking to Fox News, he said that "55,000 special interest aliens have come across our borders." "That's from countries who hate us: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. They're coming into this country freely. If only 10% got through that we didn't know about, that's 5,500 potential terrorists in this country," he added, claiming the Biden administration is "not doing their jobs and American are paying the price."
Republicans have been discussing such entries for months. House members released a report in August claiming the Biden administration encountered over 250 unlawful migrants at the southern border between 2021 and 2023, and that 99 of them were released within the country.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan detailed that the migrants came from 36 different countries, "including places with an active terrorist presence such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen." The report links the perceived lack of enforcement to the scenario that led to the September 11 attacks, saying that "more than two decades later, national security experts are again sounding the alarm about the increasing chance of terrorism in the United States due to the Biden-Harris Administration's open-border policies."
Moreover, it claims that government officials "continue to downplay the national security nightmare created by the border crisis," and recounts more recent events regarding the encounter of migrants in the watchlist that were not immediately apprehended or deported.
Trump directly linked the attack with unlawful immigration on Wednesday. "When I said the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true," Trump said in a publication on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The driver of the truck was later identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen and Army veteran who lived in Houston, Texas. Fox News had initially reported that the rental truck used on the attack had crossed into Texas from Mexico two days earlier. The network has since retracted the report.
Trump ignored the development, saying on Thursday he was right on everything and blasting Democrats, claiming they are responsible for the attack.
House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed the sentiment on Thursday, saying the party has "repeatedly asked the DHS" about "the correlation between terrorism and the wide open border."
Also speaking to Fox News, Johnson said the issue is not getting "enough attention" and that "for the past four years, the Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty."
"The idea that dangerous people were coming in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country. We impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas in the House over that very issue. They told us that the number one threat was so called racially motivated extremism. It was nonsense. This is the thing we were all concerned about," Johnson added.
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