Regarding April 5 Customs and Border Protection press release announcing captures of two Yemeni migrants in California who were on the FBI’s Terrorism Watch List and No Fly List but which was promptly removed by the agency. Read Bensman’s story about the episode here.
Brian Mudd: How many bad hombres have gone through. What’s the real risk to this country?
Bensman: “My first thought when I saw the CBP press release about the two Yemenis was just how publicly that gave lie to this constant drumbeat – from people on the liberal side of the political spectrum – that this. Doesn’t. Happen. That it never, ever happens, that it’s all a lie. It’s all made up. Middle Easterners don’t cross the southern border… let alone terrorists…They did in a very public way with this press release. Unfortunately, the press release was taken down within 24 hours. I get why they did that. I understand why they did that. I expected them to do that the second I laid eyes on it – and even screen-shotted the thing and saved it in three different places. But this does happen. They come in smaller numbers. We have people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list coming from all over the world, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh. You name it, from Muslim-majority countries that routinely cross through that southern border. My book deals extensively with that particular traffic.”
Mudd: So Todd, What do you think? Do you think Mayorkas might finally be taking this thing seriously?
Bensman: We’ll I’m hopeful. I’ve always been a glass-half-full. I don’t know how the administration can continue on this way. They can’t just be fine with 172,000 encounters, attempts to cross the border, with nearly 60,000 family members being just waved onto buses to all points of the country, not to mention all of the children. 20,000 almost. That can’t be what they want. But it could be what they want… It depends on how that meeting goes. Mayorkas, of course, understands what’s going on down there. And the reason he’s talking about filling the Biden gaps – I call them Biden gaps in that wall — might just be political. I mean, that’s a terrible look to have, you know, all these half-finished chunks of territory between walls just left like that. They’re tailor-made for Republican campaign ads for the next election. I’m sure there are production crews already down there making those campaign videos. For whatever reason, they do it, I hope they do it. Walls work incredibly well.
LISTEN TO THE APRIL 8 SEGMENT BELOW