Closing the Border to Terrorists: Cooperation between Mexican Cartels and International Terrorist Organizations

Closing the Border to Terrorists: Cooperation between Mexican Cartels and International Terrorist Organizations

By Andrew Byers and Kelsey Warner

In July 2024, three Palestinians and a Turk, all with possible connections to terrorist organizations, were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents while attempting to illegally cross the Southwest border from Mexico into the San Diego area.[1] One of the two Jordanians who attempted to breach the USMC Marine Corps Base at Quantico in May 2024 was confirmed to have crossed the Southwest border illegally before being detained and then released into the United States.[2] Eight Tajiks with ties to the Islamic State-Khorasan Branch (ISIS-K) were found to have crossed illegally into the United States via the Southwest border at various points in 2023 before being released into the United States.[3]  These are just a handful of the most recent incidents involving potential international terrorism-affiliated individuals entering the United States via the Southwest border in the past several years,[4] all facilitated by the Mexican cartels that control the flow of human trafficking across the border.

A growing number of potential terrorists have entered the United States illegally via the Southwest border in recent years. While we can document several important recent cases, we do not yet understand the full scope of the problem because of the large number of “gotaways,” illegal aliens who are known to have entered the United States, typically between ports of entry, but who do not have encounters with U.S. law enforcement officials, so their identities remain unknown and they are never vetted. The vast majority of such gotaways are, of course, economic migrants unaffiliated with international terror organizations. But the number of bad actors blending into this large pool of gotaways remains unknown and unknowable.

If the United States wants to address the problem of individuals with international terrorism ties entering the United States via the Southwest border, it will have to target the Mexican cartels, which control the flow of illegal entries into the United States. While these organizations are run primarily by businessmen driven by profit motives, well-financed terror organizations have the resources to secure entry to the United States from the cartels. The application of additional pressure on the cartels to cut off the flow of terror-affiliated illegal aliens will change the cartels’ incentives and should have some effect.

The Scope of the Problem

In December 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress that the number of warning signs of possible terror attacks inside the United States has increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas inside Israel. “What I would say that is unique about the environment that we're in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they may be right now, I've never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time.”[5] This is troubling, to say the least, and suggests that much more must be done to head off the possibility of one or more major terrorist attacks inside the homeland.

The recent re-arrest of eight Tajiks with possible ties to ISIS-K inside the United States is a case study in both the potential problem—terrorists entering the United States via the Southwest border—and how current U.S. government policies exacerbate or fail to correct the problem. While most of ISIS-K’s attacks have taken place inside Afghanistan and Pakistan (including the 2021 Kabul airport attack that killed thirteen U.S. servicemembers), ISIS-K has also staged attacks inside Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran. Most recently, in March 2024, four ISIS-K operatives, all ethnic Tajiks, attacked a Russian concert hall that killed close to 150 civilians. This recent out-of-area attack is highly worrisome because it suggests larger aspirations for ISIS-K, providing the context for why the recent arrests of eight ethnic Tajiks said to have connections to ISIS-K inside the United States are so concerning. The eight entered the United States illegally, coming across the Southwest border at various times in 2023. Of the eight Tajik nationals, three used the CBP One phone application to schedule an appointment at a port of entry, four were initially encountered by CBP while crossing the border between ports of entry, and one arrived at a port of entry without scheduling a CBP One app appointment.[6] After they were taken into custody by CBP, they were nominally “vetted” and subsequently released inside the United States with notices to appear before a U.S. immigration court at a later date.[7] Only later were they re-arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia after the individuals in question had scattered. This particular group of Tajiks is said to have ties with a larger ISIS-K cell operating in Central Europe, but it remains unclear if this was an ISIS-K operational cell being sent to conduct one or more attacks within the United States.[8]

The Tajik case is not isolated. This comes on the heels of an April 2024 arrest of an Uzbek national with ISIS-K ties who had been living illegally inside the United States for two years in Baltimore.[9] In February 2024, a Columbian man who was a positive match for membership in a terrorist organization (name of organization has not been publicly released) was detained by the Texas Department of Public Safety and turned over to CBP when he crossed into the United States via Eagle Pass area just a few days before a visit to the area by former President Donald Trump.[10] In August 2023, more than a dozen Uzbeks were detained on the Southwest border, having been infiltrated into the United States by a human smuggler with ties to ISIS.[11] Astonishingly, this case did not result in any detentions, since no derogatory information on the Uzbeks was immediately found. The Uzbeks all requested asylum and were then released into the United States and provided with court dates for their asylum hearings. It was only after the Uzbeks were released into the United States that the FBI learned that their travel had been facilitated in part by an individual with ties to ISIS. Despite the fact that there was no known immediate attack plot involving the Uzbeks and the ISIS-linked smuggler was not believed to be a formal member of ISIS but rather had “personal sympathies” with ISIS, according to U.S., government officials, this was an alarming case of potentially very dangerous human trafficking. Over 400 Central Asians are believed to have entered the United States via this ISIS-connected human trafficking operation.[12] While some 150 of the Central Asians who entered the United States via this smuggling network have now been arrested, at least fifty of them have not been relocated.

The number of individuals attempting to illegally enter the United States who are present in the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS) has increased dramatically in the last few years. CBP reports that in FY2023, there were 80 such encounters on the Southwest border and 484 such encounters on the Northern border at land ports of entry.[13] In FY2024 (Year-to-Date), there were 46 such encounters on the Southwest border and 321 on the Northern border. There were many more such encounters between ports of entry. In FY2023, there were 169 such encounters on the Southwest border and 3 on the Northern border. In FY2024 (Year-to-Date), there have been 100 on the Southwest border and 2 on the Northern border. This is not to suggest that in each case the individual in question is a known terrorist, but in each case there is enough potentially derogatory information about the individual to further screen them. The total number of potential terrorists attempting to enter the United States is unknown, because since 2021 there have been at least 1.7 million gotaways at the Southwest border (illegal entrants detected but not detained).[14] Then-U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified in March 2023 that the total number of gotaways was likely 10-20 percent higher than the publicly reported numbers.[15] We simply cannot know how many of these two million gotaways were also present in the TSDS.

Congressional oversight recently forced CBP to admit that at least 99 individuals from the TSDS encounters on the Southwest border from FY2021-23 were released into the U.S. homeland and at least 34 additional TSDS individuals remain in DHS custody and have not yet been deported.[16] These individuals represent nationals from 36 countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.[17] Of these 99, immigration judges granted bond to at least 27; four more were granted asylum inside the United States, and at least two more had their cases terminated by immigration judges.[18] In at least one case, a potential terrorist was granted bond after the immigration judge was never told by CBP that the individual was a potential national security threat. The Chief Immigration Judge admitted to a Congressional committee that only 5% of immigration judges have a Top Secret clearance, and that because of this, she “imagine[d] there may be” gaps in the information that DHS shares with immigration judges about the potential national security risks posed by such individuals.[19]

While we see news of isolated cases of watchlist-associated individuals crossing the border, Mexican cartels have a hand in everything that moves through the areas under their control, drugs, contraband, and people alike. In 2021 alone, the most recent year for which data are available, the Mexican cartels are estimated to have made $13 billion from human trafficking across the Southwest border.[20] CBP chief of the Tucson Sector recently testified before Congress that, “…if someone’s being smuggled, they’re using a criminal organization….that has changed significantly, when I started…in ’95, people could just get to the border and cross on their own….now nobody crosses without paying the cartels. …the cartels…determine when people cross…how many people cross at a time, all of that.”[21] Other senior CBP officials have likewise testified that anyone attempting to cross the Southwest border without the cooperation of the cartels—and, most importantly, paying the cartels—is beaten or killed by the cartels.[22] Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot recently noted that, “The cartels don’t have to invest a penny in any of the human smuggling. Their product is walking up to them and paying them to cross, so the cartels control every bit of what’s going on. Same with over in Baja. So it’s more of a human product and it’s cheap and easy for them. They just tell‘em when to cross.”[23]

Policy Recommendations

A number of obvious and immediate policy recommendations naturally flow from the above analysis. All require significant political will to implement and require acknowledging that there is a major problem underway. The good news is that there are some remedies that can begin to help cut off the flow of individuals with links to international terrorist organizations. If terrorists want to enter the United States badly enough, some will find ways to get inside the United States no matter what policy changes are implemented. The key is to raise the costs for illegal entry and deter at least some terror organizations from dispatching operatives because of the increased likelihood of getting caught.

One common refrain is that Mexican cartels and other transnational criminal organizations should be designated as terrorist organizations. This would not necessarily increase U.S. legal authority to deal with the problem, however. As Brian Jenkins noted, “Ironically, the USA Patriot Act, passed in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, allowed investigators dealing with terrorism ‘to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking.’”[24] While potentially satisfying, doing so would not change much. More specific policy solutions are needed.

First, the United States must apply additional pressure on the Mexican cartels to cut off the flow of terror-affiliated illegal entrants. This pressure should take the form of additional focusing of law enforcement resources, as well as military and intelligence community support for CBP and state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies on the border. In part, this could take the form of cooperative training exercises between U.S. and Mexican forces that would give Mexican law enforcement organizations additional resources while simultaneously allowing the United States deeper and more frequent access to vet their Mexican partners. The United States could also create a formalized, identity-protected channel of communication for Mexican law enforcement personnel to report terrorism concerns. This channel could be supported by additional counterterrorism training.

Second, the United States should cease using a kingpin strategy and head-hunting tactics, which target cartel leaders, which only serve to further destabilize the local cartel presence and spur further violence. As one study found, such an approach failed to “tackl[e] underlying issues like corruption, collusion, impunity, and a lack of economic opportunities,” and ended up doubling the local homicide rates where such a strategy was employed.[25] Another study found that homicide rates increase by 80% in a municipality in which a cartel leader is captured, and these effects persist for at least one year; neighboring municipalities suffer a 30% increase in homicides, with effects lasting at least six months.[26] The case study of the Sinaloa Cartel’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is one such cautionary tale. El Chapo was arrested in 2014, re-arrested in 2016, and extradited to the United States in 2017. This resulted in the creation of a power vacuum within the Sinaloa Cartel, which immediately resulted in massively increased violence as various Sinaloa factions jockeyed for influence. Cartel violence peaked in 2018, with 33,341 homicides that year, though Mexico’s murder rate has only diminished slightly since then.[27] While the removal of El Chapo from power initially seemed to be a success, it soon became clear that this was a Pyrrhic victory at best. New approaches that address underlying sources of violence, poor governance, and poverty while simultaneously depriving cartels of resources are needed.

Third, the United States should employ a combination of carrots and sticks against the Mexican government to pressure it to assist in combating the cartels. This would be a combination of punitive measures against Mexican law enforcement when they fail to stop crossings as well as providing additional resources and training to help them perform their jobs better. Note that giving the Mexican government increased access to U.S. vetting procedures may make them better at assisting the cartels in evading our security efforts but is probably necessary.

Lastly, in response to the recent reporting of at least 99 detained watchlisters being allowed into the United States, the U.S. federal government should make detention and automatic deportation the rule for all detained illegal aliens with derogatory data on the TSDS watchlist, rather than allowing immigration judges to grant bonds or asylum status, both of which permit release of these individuals into the United States with minimal to no oversight. This change may require congressional support but should be a nonpartisan issue. If such a new blanket policy is not politically feasible, all immigration judges should go through the process of receiving Top Secret security clearances so that they can be given information about the national security risks posed by detained watchlisters by CBP and other intelligence community officials. CBP should create a formalized process for its personnel with first-hand interactions with those on the list to refer them for further questioning by U.S. intelligence agencies before the detainees receive further processing. Illegal aliens with derogatory information on the TSDS watchlist should have their cases reviewed by immigration judges with the proper security clearances to review all information pertaining to the individuals.