Why isn't the Biden administration telling lawmakers about new threats being identified by the Department of Homeland Security?
That's the question being posed by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman August Pfluger (R-TX), and Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) as the lawmakers demand answers after they say new threats reported by DHS were not communicated to lawmakers who instead learned of the warnings from news reports.
As Townhall reported on the threat bulletin issued by the San Diego Field Office Intelligence Unit of Customs and Border Protection (SDFO-FITU), the entity had assessed that "individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt to travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border."
That information, however, was not communicated to the Homeland Security Committee — and Chairmen Green, Pfluger, and Higgins want to know why such information was kept from lawmakers, seeking answers in a new letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
"It is concerning that the Committee on Homeland Security (Committee) learned about this information through public news sources and not directly from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) despite the Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) transmitting near-daily situational reports about the IsraelHamas conflict to the Committee," the lawmakers' letter emphasized. "We write to request additional information about this matter, to include DHS’s efforts to identify, investigate, and mitigate these national security threats."
Green and Pfluger also reminded that the Homeland Security Committee — or its Republican contingent at least — "continues to have serious concerns about the security of our Southwest border and the potential for terrorists to take advantage of the glaring vulnerabilities created by the Biden administration’s open border polices."
As the lawmakers work on getting to the bottom of the situation, Green and Pfluger requested the following information from Sec. Mayorkas with a response deadline of November 1:
1. All documents and communications referring or relating to the October 20, 2023 document, entitled, “Foreign Fighters of Israel-Hamas Conflict May Potentially Encountered at [the] Southwest Border,” and intelligence products about “individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict,” “foreign fighters,” and “travel across the Southwest border,” from October 7, 2023, to the present; and
2. A document sufficient to identify all DHS employees involved in drafting, reviewing, approving, or disseminating the October 20, 2023 document entitled “Foreign Fighters of Israel-Hamas Conflict May Potentially be Encountered at [the] Southwest Border.”