The Biden administration has reportedly slapped new restrictions on the release of migrants into the interior from at least one Central Asian country amid ongoing concerns about terrorism.
The New York Post reported this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has received orders that migrants from Tajikistan shouldn’t be released from custody, and if they are, they need to be first interviewed by intelligence officials.
It comes after a series of terror-related concerns connected to some nationals from the Central Asian country. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Last month, eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to ISIS were busted by federal authorities in New York City, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All eight came in via the southern border illegally, but no derogatory information was flagged during processing.
The suspected terrorists were "fully vetted" and nothing was flagged, according to a federal source. The source said after the suspected terrorists were released into the U.S., information was flagged with national security concerns, including the individuals' ties to ISIS.
Since then, DHS has identified more than 400 individuals brought to the U.S. from Eastern European and Central Asian countries by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network in the past several months.
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A senior DHS source told Fox last month that more than 150 people so far have either been removed, placed in removal proceedings or are currently receiving additional screening. The source would not confirm if or how many matched the terror watch list. Of the remaining 50 people at large, they acknowledged that a small number "may match the terrorism watch list."
"There is no intelligence that suggests the remaining individuals pose an imminent threat to the homeland," the official said.
DHS does not believe this is an ISIS terror operation but rather a network taking advantage of migrants seeking entry to the U.S., the source said. However, there is heightened security risk due to their countries of origin. Fox was told at that time that border officials were instructed to detain any people coming from certain countries or associated with the network so that additional vetting could be carried out. The Post report appears to confirm that nationals from Tajikistan are included.
It comes amid an ongoing crisis at the southern border now into its fourth year, although numbers have dropped recently.
San Diego has been one of the hot spots for arrivals this year, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told Fox News Digital on Wednesday in response to a question about the report of new restrictions, and that the issue is one of vetting.
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"Border Patrol has been overwhelmed, there just has not been enough proper vetting of people coming across our borders," he said in an interview. "And I think that's the number one issue: the safety of the people here in our country, of who is being let in and unfortunately, we don't know we don't know a lot of the people [or] their background."
"Our Border Patrol just has not been able to properly vet people coming across our border. And to me, that's not only just a security issue for San Diego County, but also for the entire country," he said.
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Federal officials have noted the difficulties in correctly vetting migrants coming across the border. Acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner recently said that "sometimes there is just no information on individuals" when they’re being vetted.
"It is quite common where there is just nothing, you don't have anything. There's no criminal convictions, no threat information or whatever on these individuals. Or maybe these individuals are from an area that is particularly of concern but that pops up later when you get information later on," he said.
Fox News' Griff Jenkins contributed to this report.
