FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Monday that there are a “wide array” of threats coming from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The acknowledgment came during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) asked about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
"Director Wray, we know that over the last three years, millions of people have crossed the U.S. border illegally, and many have been released into the country. Have people with ties to dangerous gangs – like, for example, the prison gang Tren de Aragua from Venezuela – were they among the people that came into this country?" he wondered.
Wray did not single out specific gangs in his response but spoke more broadly about the security threat the border posed.
"From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that's just on the fentanyl side," he said. "An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl.”
Rubio then referenced the gang again and used the NYPD officers who were assaulted by a group of illegal border crossers as an example.
"There’s no doubt that people that were criminals in their country of origin have crossed that border and are now in the U.S. committing crimes," he said.
"Correct," Wray confirmed.
The Republican senator also wondered about smuggling organizations that may have ties to terrorist groups.
"So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that has, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about and that we've been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that's, again, the subject of our current investigation," he said.
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY: “From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border… There is a particular network — where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about” pic.twitter.com/qhTuvX32NN
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) March 12, 2024
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