ICE confirms DCNF report about terrorist who roamed free in US for almost a year before arrest

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed on Thursday that it nabbed a terrorist after the Daily Caller News Foundation learned of his prolonged presence in the U.S. earlier this week.

A member of the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist group was caught entering the U.S. illegally in March of 2023 but was soon released into the country and roamed free for nearly a year before he was arrested in Minnesota by ICE in January, according to an internal agency memo obtained exclusively by the DCNF. ICE Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner confirmed the terrorist was arrested “within 48 hours” of the agency learning that he was actually on the terror watch list.

“I can say that for this individual, within 20 – within 48 hours, excuse me – of ICE becoming aware of his status as on the watch list, within 48 hours, he was apprehended,” Lechleitner said during a press briefing on Thursday. “I want to commend our personnel because as soon as we became aware of that, within 48 hours, he was apprehended, and [now] he’s currently in ICE custody.”

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“So I think that’s an incredible result and just a testament to how professional and you know, quite honestly, how capable our personnel are,” Lechleitner concluded.

The al-Shabaab terrorist was arrested for trying to illegally cross the southern border last year but was subsequently released into the U.S. because the Terrorist Screening Center “deemed him a ‘mismatch’” when his name was run against the terror watchlist, according to the internal memo obtained by the DCNF. The Terrorist Screening Center “made a redetermination” on Jan. 18 that he was a “confirmed member of al-Shabaab” and was involved in using, transporting, or manufacturing explosives and weapons.

He was arrested by ICE approximately two days later in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“The overburdening of the Border Patrol with the excessive amounts of illegal border crossers has forced faster processing times, which doesn’t allow for a more vigorous initial investigation into a migrants background,”@JohnE_Fabb tells me.

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) January 29, 2024

The number of terror-linked individuals trying to illegally enter the U.S. is increasing; Border Patrol caught 50 illegal migrants on the terror watchlist trying to get into the country between October and December of 2023, compared to 14 similar apprehensions between fiscal years 2017 and 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection data. The Border Patrol caught over 170 terrorists trying to enter the country during all of fiscal year 2023.

Roughly 860,000 individuals evaded arrest and escaped into the U.S. without ever being apprehended by the Border Patrol at all in fiscal year 2023. Lechleitner did not answer Thursday how many other terrorists had escaped into the country before ICE was able to flag them down.

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