(The Center Square) – A new bill would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to publish data on “Special Interest Aliens” who are apprehended illegally entering the U.S.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, introduced the bill after speaking about her concerns at a hearing held by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement. The bill is being marked up in committee on Wednesday along with roughly two dozen bills.
An SIA is a noncitizen who, based “on an analysis of travel patterns,” is “known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism” who “potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or U.S. interests,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security explains.
SIA data collected by DHS has never been made public under any administration.
Having an SIA designation does not necessarily mean the individual is a terrorist but their travel pattern “indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provides indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation,” DHS says.
There have been at least 73,000 SIAs arrested under the Biden-Harris administration, Greene said, adding that this number “does not include the potential special interest aliens among the 2 million known gotaways.” She’s referring to illegal border crossers who intentionally evade capture, don’t return to Mexico or Canada, run when pursued by law enforcement and aren’t apprehended, or their tracks are found by law enforcement and reported, officials have explained to The Center Square.
DHS does not publicly report gotaway data. The Center Square first reported on this data in 2021 after obtaining it from a Border Patrol agent. Gotaways now total at least over 2 million.
“While we’ve caught at least 73,000 or more at the border, there are another over 2 million we have no idea who they are, where they are, and what they’re planning to do in our country,” Greene said.
The bill requires DHS to publish the number of SIAs apprehended every month and to report their countries of origin.
The bill “will demand much-needed transparency from the Biden-Harris administration on the number of special interest aliens illegally crossing our borders, including those from adversarial nations like Iran, China, and Russia,” U.S. Committee on Homeland Security Secretary Chair Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., told The Center Square.
“Amid the worst border crisis in American history, the Biden-Harris administration continues to try to hide the glaring vulnerabilities it has created with its open-borders policies,” he said, referring to testimony given last week before the committee by retired San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke.
Heitke testified that the Biden administration instructed him to not publicize arrests of SIAs.
“We had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens … with significant ties to terrorism” illegally entering in the CBP San Diego Sector, he said. Prior to the Biden-Harris administration, the sector averaged 10 to 15 SIAs per year. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” Heitke said.
“These are only the ones we caught,” meaning the number likely is higher because of the volume of gotaways.
“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIA’s or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke said. “The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”
SIAs have been on the radar of DHS for some time. In 2016, under the Obama administration, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered DHS to create a “‘multi-DHS Component SIA Joint Action Group’ to drive efforts to ‘counter the threats posed by the smuggling of SIAs.’” In 2019, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security released a report outlining the threat posed by SIAs and “unknown and other potentially dangerous individuals, traveling to the United States using illicit pathways.”
The bill was also filed as Texas Department of Public Safety troopers are increasingly apprehending SIAs at the Texas-Mexico border, The Center Square reported. Recent SIAs apprehended have identification from Turkey, Pakistan and South Africa.
One man with a South African ID “may be the spouse or child of a known or suspected terrorist,” Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez said. One Iranian SIA, a female in possession of two passports, from Iran and Brazil, “was turned over to intelligence specialists for further vetting as a foreign subject of interest,” Olivarez said.
Green’s bill was filed as the greatest number of individuals on the U.S. federal terrorist watch list, referred to as known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), have been apprehended under the Biden-Harris administration.
They total 1,856 since fiscal 2021 through August, The Center Square first reported. The majority are being apprehended at the US-Canada border.
While CBP publishes KST data, it does not publish their country of origin.
By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor
