20 Security Failures From The Biden-Harris Administration’s Open Border

Last week, former President Bill Clinton said the quiet part out loud while campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris: Georgia nursing student Laken Riley would still be alive today if her alleged illegal immigrant killer had been “properly vetted” by the Biden-Harris administration. He’s right.

America was built by immigrants. But the failed immigration policies of this White House are anything but humane to Americans, to legal immigrants, and even to illegal migrants trafficked by cartels. Biden and Harris have opened our borders to terrorism and crime from around the world. A surge in illegal crossings and inadequate vetting has led to a disturbing rise in drug trafficking, human smuggling, and murders, not just in border communities, but even in our most northern states.

Here’s the bottom line: the Biden-Harris administration has been derelict in its Constitutional duty to protect American citizens from foreign threats. The following 20 incidents represent just a fraction of the countless examples of open border policies that threaten our homeland security.

1. DHS Finds 400 Migrants Brought by ISIS-Related Smugglers (June 26, 2024): According to three officials, DHS identified over 400 migrants brought to the United States from Central Asia and other places by an ISIS-affiliated network of human smugglers.  Many of them crossed the southern border and were reportedly released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection because they were not on the FBI’s terror watchlist. While 150 of them were arrested on immigration charges, most were not arrested — and the whereabouts of more than 50 others are unknown.

2. Six Suspected Terrorists with ISIS Ties Arrested (June 11, 2024): In a coordinated sting operation, six Russian nationals originally from Tajikistan with suspected ties to ISIS were arrested in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia after crossing the border. They were apprehended following an FBI tip-off and months of surveillance by a multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Force. Wiretaps revealed discussions about bombs and growing concerns about their intentions.  Despite initially being released at the southern border with court dates set for next year, their potential ISIS affiliations only emerged later, revealing a dangerous security lapse.

3. Illegal Immigrant Charged in Killing of Maryland Mother (June 15, 2024): Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was arrested for the murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five, whose body was discovered near a hiking trail in August 2023. Martinez-Hernandez, who entered the United States in February 2023, was apprehended in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.

4. Migrants Indicted for Attacking NYPD Officers (February 6, 2024): Seven illegal immigrants who attacked two NYPD officers in Times Square on January 27 were indicted by a grand jury.  Five suspects — Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel, Wilson Juarez, Kelvin Servita Arocha, Yorman Reveron, and Yohenry Brito — were arrested, while two remained at large. The suspects were caught on video kicking the officers, including in the head. Gomez-Izquiel, Juarez, Arocha, and Reveron were released without bail and were said to be on the run.

5. Lebanese Migrant Admitted Hezbollah Affiliation (March 17, 2024): Basel Bassel Ebbadi was apprehended near El Paso on March 9, 2024, after crossing the southern border illegally. Ebbadi, 22, admitted to being a Hezbollah member with plans to make a bomb and head to New York. He confessed to training with Hezbollah for seven years and serving as an active member for four years, guarding weapons locations.

6. Terrorist Caught at Border Roamed Free for a Year (January 29, 2024): A member of the Somali terror group al-Shabaab, caught illegally crossing the southern border near San Ysidro, California, on March 13, 2023, was released into the United States by authorities and roamed freely for nearly a year before his apprehension. Although an initial screening by the Terrorist Screening Center deemed him a “mismatch,” a re-determination confirmed his al-Shabaab ties. He was later arrested in Minneapolis.

7. Border Patrol Released Suspected Terrorist at Border (May 23, 2022): ICE rearrested a Colombian citizen suspected of terrorism two weeks after his release into the country by Border Patrol agents. Isnardo Garcia-Amado, 35, was apprehended near Yuma, Arizona, on April 18, 2022, and given a GPS monitoring device. He was flagged by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center as a match on the terror watch list.  ICE received authorization to arrest him on May 4, 2022, and he was subsequently arrested in Florida on May 6. DHS stated that he was detained promptly after receiving additional law enforcement information, but its handling of the situation was criticized as inexcusable.

8. Terror Watchlist Migrant Arrested Before Trump, Biden Visits (March 5, 2024): Border Patrol agents apprehended Carlos Obed Yepez-Bedoya — a Colombian national on the FBI’s terror watchlist — after he illegally crossed the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, on February 21, 2024. This arrest occurred just days before visits from former President Trump and President Biden. Initially detained by the Texas Department of Public Safety as part of Operation Lone Star, Yepez-Bedoya was flagged as a terror organization member.

9. Potential Terrorist Dropped from ATD Program (April 17, 2024): Mohammad Kharwin, an Afghan national on the FBI terrorist watchlist and associated with Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), was arrested in San Antonio after nearly a year in the United States.  He had been enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program but was dropped from monitoring after just over two weeks, spending 10 months unsupervised. Despite his watchlist status, Kharwin was initially treated as a low-threat migrant upon his illegal entry near San Ysidro, California, in March 2023. Re-arrested in February 2024 based on FBI intelligence, ICE prosecutors did not fully disclose classified information about Kharwin during his court appearance.

10. Border Patrol Arrests Afghan on Terror Watchlist (May 14, 2023): An Afghan national on the FBI’s terror watchlist illegally crossed into the United States near Otay Mesa, California, according to multiple CBP sources, before the end of Title 42. The Afghan, identified via fingerprint scan as a match on the Terrorist Screening Database, prompted an FBI investigation.

11. Illegal Immigrant Indicted for Murder of Laken Riley (June 11, 2024): A Georgia grand jury indicted Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, on 10 counts, including malice murder, for killing Augusta University student Laken Riley. The 26-year-old Ibarra is accused of murdering the 22-year-old nursing student while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on February 22. The indictment includes charges of kidnapping with bodily injury and aggravated assault with intent to rape. Ibarra, who crossed the southern border, allegedly killed Riley by blunt-force trauma and asphyxiation.

12. Haitian Immigrant Arrested for the Rape of 15-year-old Girl (March 13, 2024): Cory Alvarez, 26, was arrested and charged with aggravated rape of a child at a Rockland, Massachusetts hotel used to house migrants. According to Alvarez’s defense attorney, he came to the United States from Haiti as part of the migrant system. Police were alerted to the assault by a 911 call from the hotel’s front desk, reporting that a disabled 15-year-old girl who speaks French Creole had been sexually assaulted. The victim told police that Alvarez assaulted her in his room while she sought assistance with an app on her tablet.

13. Illegal Immigrant Charged with Murder of 2-year-old Jeremy Poou-Caceres (February 8, 2024): The Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland charged 25-year-old Nilson Trejo-Granados with first and second-degree murder on February 8, 2024. Trejo-Granados, an unlawfully present Salvadoran national, had been ordered for removal from the United States by an immigration judge in November 2022. Despite multiple arrests by Montgomery County Police, he was released twice from custody after ICE lodged Immigration Detainers that were not honored by the Montgomery County Detention Center.

14. Minnesota Man Convicted of Beheading Girlfriend (May 11, 2023): Alexis Saborit, an illegal alien from Cuba with a history of violence, was convicted of first-degree murder for the brutal beheading of his girlfriend, America Thayer. Saborit attacked Thayer with an 8-pound dumbbell while they were in a vehicle near downtown Shakopee and then decapitated her with a machete, shocking witnesses who captured the act on video. The couple was en route to Saborit’s court appearance for felony charges related to setting their apartment on fire. Saborit fled the scene, but was arrested shortly after. He has since been found not guilty due to mental illness.

15. Texas Massacre Suspect was Deported Four Times (May 1, 2023): Francisco Oropesa Perez-Torres, the man accused of killing five Honduran immigrant neighbors, including a 9-year-old boy in Cleveland, Texas, had entered the United States illegally and been deported by immigration officials at least four times, according to ICE.  Oropesa, 38, opened fire after being asked to stop shooting his rifle near a neighboring family’s home. Despite being deported twice in 2009 and again in 2012 and  2016, Oropesa repeatedly re-entered the country. Authorities, considering him armed and dangerous, offered an $80,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

16. Man Accused of Sexually Assaulting Girl in Texas (January 25, 2023): Jose Hernandez, 31, was charged with five counts of indecency with a child. The Waco Police Department began investigating Hernandez after a referral from an outside agency in November 2021. They discovered that Hernandez allegedly sexually assaulted a girl under the age of 12 multiple times between 2018 and 2020 at residences in Waco and Lott, Texas. The sheriff’s office said Hernandez was in the country illegally, and has been deported back to Mexico multiple times.

17. Four Migrants Arrested and Charged with Rape (October 4, 2023): In Colonie, New York, four asylum seekers and an undocumented hotel employee at SureStay Hotel faced serious charges, including assault, robbery, and rape. The incidents, occurring over a six-day span, involved assaults, a knife display during a physical altercation, and a robbery at a nearby store. The undocumented worker stood accused of raping a hotel guest.

18. Brazilian Migrant Set Free Despite ICE Detainer (January 30, 2024): Lucas Vilaca Moreira Fontenelle, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant from Brazil, was released under local sanctuary policies in Massachusetts despite having an assault conviction and an active ICE detainer. Fontenelle, previously convicted of assault with a firearm, was let go by a city jail without notifying federal authorities, only to be accused soon after in an armed robbery at a Milford butcher shop with two other Brazilian nationals, Daniel Generoso and Jonathan Lima de Araujo.

19. Migrant Suspected of Sex Assault on 13-Year-Old Girl in NYC Park (June 18, 2024): An Ecuadorian migrant, who sources believe entered the United States illegally in 2021, was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Kissena Park, Queens. The incident occurred in broad daylight, with the suspect using a machete-style blade to hold the girl and a 13-year-old boy at knifepoint before tying their wrists and assaulting the girl. Following the attack, the children ran to their school and alerted staff, prompting a significant police response. The NYPD released images and footage of the suspect, leading to his identification and arrest by residents of a Queens shelter.

20. Illegal Migrant Allegedly Murders Daytona Beach Couple (November 21, 2023): Jean Robert Macean, a 33-year-old Haitian illegal alien, was declared competent to stand trial for the alleged murder of Brenda Aultman, 55, and Terry Aultman, 48, during Daytona Beach’s 2022 Bike Week. Macean faces two counts of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing the couple as they rode home from the event. He apparently posed as an unaccompanied minor and had previous arrests related to drug charges, which were dropped by Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala.

* * *

Morgan Ortagus is the Founder of POLARIS National Security and host of “The Morgan Ortagus Show” on SiriusXM. During the Trump Administration, she served at the Department of State as the Spokeswoman for the United States of America.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.