What a Hezbollah Terrorist Nabbed at Border Was Planning to Do in US

Leah Barkoukis | March 18, 2024 8:00 AM

The border crisis is often described as a ticking time bomb as scores of people from around the world illegally enter each day. Not all of them are economic migrants looking to make a better life for themselves in America. Former President Trump has been among those warning of the dangers of illegal immigration, writing on Truth Social earlier this year that the border is “a catastrophe waiting to happen” because “terrorists are pouring in, unchecked, from all over the world.” He argued there is a 100 percent chance of a major attack taking place because of the open border.

He's probably not wrong.

Earlier this month, a Lebanese national who was caught trying to illegally cross the border admitted to being a member of Hezbollah and wanting to make a bomb.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.
But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hamas because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in in, you can never get out,” according to internal ICE documents.
Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show.
Ebbadi’s training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” he said. […]
Ebbadi was immediately placed into isolation and was referred for an interview with the Tactical Terrorism Response Team (TTRT) for making “terroristic threats to personnel.”
Internal documents show he was marked for deportation from the US, although it was not clear which country he would be returned to. (New York Post)

The arrest is hardly surprising given how many individuals on the terror watchlist have been apprehended at the northern and southern borders.

In Fiscal Year 2023, there were 172, and so far in Fiscal Year 2024, there have been 59 apprehensions.

Illegal migrant from Lebanon caught at border admitted he’s a Hezbollah terrorist hoping ‘to make a bomb’

Joe Biden’s open border policies are a magnet for this type of terror.

America cannot survive another four years of Biden’s deadly policies. https://t.co/LaqJck4JmT
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) March 17, 2024