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Tajikistan nationals with suspected ties to ISIS deported in immigration proceedings, US officials say

Tajikistan nationals with suspected ties to ISIS deported in immigration proceedings, US officials say
Tajikistan nationals with suspected ties to ISIS deported in immigration proceedings, US officials say

 


When federal agents arrested eight Tajik nationals suspected of having ties to the Islamic State terrorist group on immigration charges in June, U.S. officials believed coordinated raids in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia s would prove to be the quickest way to foil a possible terrorist plot in one's country. early stages. Four months later, after being detained at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, three of the men have already been returned to Tajikistan and Russia, U.S. officials told CBS News, following their deportation by immigration court judges.

Four other Tajik nationals — also detained in ICE detention centers — are awaiting deportation flights to Central Asia, and U.S. officials anticipate they will be returned in the coming weeks. Only one of the arrested men remains awaiting trial due to a medical condition, although U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive proceedings, said he remained detained and was at risk. to experience a similar outcome.

The men face no additional charges – including terrorism-related offenses – and were decided to immediately arrest them and deport them through deportation proceedings, rather than orchestrating a hotly contested terrorism trial in Article III courts, born out of a pressing short-term concern about public safety.

Shortly after the eight foreign nationals entered the United States, the FBI became aware of potential ties to the Islamic State, CBS News previously reported. The FBI identified a terrorist plot at an early stage, triggering their immediate arrests, in part through a wiretap after the individuals had already been examined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, law enforcement sources confirmed to CBS News in June.

Several months later, their expulsions following immigration proceedings mark a break with the US government's post-9/11 intelligence-sharing architecture.

Faced with a more diverse migrant population at the U.S.-Mexico border, a new effort is underway by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the intelligence community to normalize sharing direct classified information – including some marked as top secret – with US immigration judges.

Sharing information more regularly with immigration judges is intended to allow U.S. immigration courts to more regularly incorporate derogatory information into their decisions. This effort led to the creation of more vaults and sensitive compartmentalized information facilities – also known as SCIFs – to facilitate the sharing of classified documents. Once considered a last resort for the department, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has in recent months sought to use immigration tools to mitigate and disrupt threatening activity.

The June immigration raids underscore the U.S. government's wave of terrorism concerns this year, as national security agencies highlight a system now flashing red in the wake of Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, with emerging terrorism. spots in Central Asia.

A joint intelligence bulletin released this month and obtained by CBS News warns that foreign terrorist organizations have exploited the attack nearly a year ago and its aftermath to try to recruit radicalized followers, creating media which compares the attacks of October 7 and September 11 and encourages “lone attackers to use simple tactics such as guns, knives, Molotov cocktails and ram vehicles against Western targets in retaliation for the deaths in Gaza.”

In May, ICE arrested an Uzbek man with suspected ties to ISIS in Baltimore after he had lived in the United States for more than two years, NBC News first reported.

Over the past year, Tajik nationals have participated in foiled terrorist plots in Russia, Iran and Turkey, as well as in Europe. Several Tajik men were arrested following the deadly March attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall, which left at least 133 people dead and hundreds more. hurt.

The attack has been linked to ISIS-K, or Islamic State of Khorasan Province, a branch of ISIS that emerged in 2015, founded by disillusioned members of Pakistani militant groups, including Taliban fighters. In August 2021, during the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS-K launched a suicide attack in Kabul, killing 13 US service members and at least 170 Afghan civilians.

In a recent change in ICE policy, the agency now routinely screens foreign nationals arriving from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, detaining them pending a deportation proceedings or an immigration hearing.

Only 0.007% of migrant arrivals make it onto the FBI watch list, and an even smaller number of asylum seekers are ultimately deported. But with the arrival of migrants at the southwest border from conflict zones in the Eastern Hemisphere, posing potential links to extremist or terrorist groups, the White House is now exploring ways to expedite the removal of applicants asylum seekers considered a possible threat to the American public.

“Encounters with migrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries, such as China, India, Russia, and West African countries, in fiscal year 2024 decreased slightly, dropping from approximately 10% to 9% of all encounters, but remains a higher proportion of encounters than before FY 2023,” according to the Homeland Threat Assessment, a public intelligence document released early in the year. month.

A senior Homeland Security official told reporters at a press briefing Wednesday that the United States is engaged in an “ongoing effort to try to make sure that we can use all the available information that the U.S. government has classified and unclassified, and ensuring that the best possible picture of a person seeking entry to the United States is available to front-line personnel who encounter that person. »

Approximately 139 individuals reported on the FBI's terrorist watch list were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border through July of fiscal 2024. This number decreased from 216 during the same period in 2023. CBP encountered 283 individuals on the watch list at the U.S.-Canada border through July. of the 2024 financial year, compared to 375 encountered during the same period in 2023.

“I think one of the features of increased migration in recent years is that our border personnel are encountering a much more diverse and global population of individuals who are attempting to enter the United States or seeking to enter in the United States,” a senior DHS official said. said. “So, at some point in the past, this might have been primarily a Western Hemisphere phenomenon. Today, our border personnel encounter individuals from all over the world, from all regions of the world, including areas of conflict and other areas where individuals may have or may maintain links with extremist or terrorist organizations that have long been of concern to us.

In April, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that human smuggling operations at the southern border were involving people with possible ties to terrorist groups.

“Looking back on my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so high at the same time, but there is today. today,” Wray told Congress in June, just days before most of the Tajik men were arrested.

The expedited return of three Tajiks to Central Asia required enormous diplomatic communications, facilitated by the State Department, U.S. officials said.

Returns to Central Asia regularly face operational and diplomatic obstacles, although there are regular channels for expulsion. According to agency data, in 2023, ICE deported only four migrants to Tajikistan.

Margaret Brennan, Robert Legare and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.

More from CBS News

Nicole Sganga

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