18,000 confirmed and suspected terrorists entered U.S. under Biden

The government has identified 18,000 known or suspected terrorists who reached the U.S. during the Biden administration, senior officials told Congress on Thursday.

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said they represent a “persistent” threat inside the country.

“The No. 1 threat that we have right now in my view is the fact that we don’t know who came into our country in the last four years of Biden’s open borders,” Mr. Kent told the House Homeland Security Committee as part of a hearing on worldwide threats.

He said the 18,000 are just the ones his agency has been able to identify so far. He suggested that others could be lurking, particularly those who sneaked across the border.

Known or suspected terrorists, or KSTs as they are called in Washington-speak, are those whom the government has linked either directly to terrorist activities or deemed associates of those who are terrorists.

Mr. Kent said they would have been blocked under normal immigration procedures.

“Yet the Biden administration not only let them into the country and in many cases facilitated their entry,” he said.

He pointed to Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan migrant charged in the shooting attack near the White House last month that killed one National Guard soldier and critically wounded another. The man was admitted to the U.S. as part of President Biden’s airlift of Afghans in 2021 after years of assisting the U.S. war effort.

Mr. Kent said Mr. Lakanwal was approved to assist the U.S. in Afghanistan but never underwent the vetting that should have been conducted before he reached American soil.

“The Biden administration essentially used his tactical-level vetting as a ruse to bring him here,” Mr. Kent said.

He said 2,000 of the 18,000 known or suspected terrorists his agency has identified arrived as part of the Afghan airlift operations.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, testifying alongside Mr. Kent, echoed those concerns.

The committee’s Democrats said Ms. Noem was trying to shirk responsibility.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the committee, demanded that Ms. Noem confirm that Mr. Lakanwal was approved for asylum this year, while President Trump was in office.

The secretary wouldn’t give a direct answer. Instead, she said the rules used to adjudicate his application were established during the Biden administration.

Mr. Thompson drew sharp criticism when he called the ambush of the Guard troops an “unfortunate accident.”

“You think that was an unfortunate accident?” Ms. Noem retorted. “He shot our Guardsmen in the head.”

“It was an unfortunate situation. But you blamed it solely on Joe Biden,” Mr. Thomson countered.

The situation deteriorated further when Ms. Noem left the hearing just after noon. She had said she had a 1 p.m. meeting, but Mr. Thompson later said he understood the meeting had been canceled.

He moved to subpoena her to demand that she reappear under compulsion.

That was defeated in a 13-12 party-line vote.

Ms. Noem estimated the overall figure of migrant arrivals during the Biden administration to be 15 million to 20 million.

Other estimates are somewhat lower, particularly those regarding the number of new arrivals who managed to establish a foothold in the country.

Ms. Noem warned about the increased risk of terrorist attacks surrounding next year’s World Cup and the celebration of the 250th birthday of the U.S., as measured from the Declaration of Independence.

“DHS is using every tool and authority that we have to ensure the safety of U.S. citizens and our visitors,” she said.

Democrats repeatedly confronted Ms. Noem with video of deportees or, in person, relatives of those arrested or deported.

That included a Zoom video link with Sae Joon Park, an Army veteran wounded during the 1989 military action in Panama, who self-deported over the summer. He amassed some drug-related charges, which he blamed on untreated post-traumatic stress disorder but which made him a target for deportation.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island Democrat, said Mr. Park’s crimes hurt only “himself” and he has been “clean and sober” for the past 14 years.

“You don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,” the congressman said.

Ms. Noem promised to review the case but said the immigration system needs “integrity.”