Tom Cotton criticizes DHS for ‘protecting identities’ of terrorist-linked illegal immigrants

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is strongly criticizing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for “protecting the identities” of illegal immigrants on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terrorist watch list.

“I am writing about disturbing reports that the Department of Homeland Security is refusing to disclose the nationalities of suspects on the FBI’s terrorism watch list who illegally crossed the southern border,” Cotton wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

As Cotton notes, Fox News filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in October 2023 asking DHS for the nationalities of illegal aliens who had crossed the border since January 2021 and were subsequently placed on the terrorist watch list.

In response to the request, DHS said the agency was “committed to protecting the identities of individuals” on the terrorism watch list and that making the information public was an “invasion of privacy.”

“(DHS) asserted that the “privacy interests” of illegal alien terrorists “far outweigh any public interest, if any, in having their information disclosed,” Cotton wrote:

Your letter also dubiously claims that terrorist organizations could exploit nationality information by “inferring that a significant percentage of its operatives are of a particular nationality,” which raises fewer red flags when it comes to terrorism.If the Biden-Harris administration enforced our laws impartially and deported illegal immigrants regardless of their origin, terrorists would not be able to game the system. in the way you describe. (Emphasis added)

I suspect that the real reason you are unlawfully refusing to release this information about the nationality of terrorist suspects is not related to privacy or security concerns, but rather to partisan concerns that could alarm the American people. Again, You are trying to hide evidence of the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis. (Emphasis added)

But the American people have a right to know who is crossing our border, especially when those illegal immigrants have ties to terrorism. And this right, contrary to what you bizarrely assert, “far outweighs” the right to privacy of illegal aliens suspected of terrorism. Honestly, I can’t believe I have to write this sentence. (Emphasis added)

Cotton asks Mayorkas to provide his Senate office by September 10 the nationalities of illegal immigrants on the terrorist watch list.

In July, Biden and Harris’ DHS oversaw the arrival at the southern border of nearly 400 illegal immigrants who had been on the terrorist watch list since early January 2021.

A recent shocking report from the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement found that the Biden-Harris administration “has released at least 99 individuals into U.S. communities, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the United States.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.