Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Kharwin, who the FBI’s terror watchlist indicated is a member of Hezb-e-Islami, an organization designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., was initially caught crossing the border in 2023 but was released from custody because Border Patrol agents did not have biometric information tying him to the terrorist watchlist.
He was able to live in the U.S. for over a year before being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this year, but he was released once again after ICE prosecutors withheld evidence Kharwin was on the terror watchlist because the information was classified. Instead, prosecutors attempted to argue that the Afghan national was a flight risk, the report notes.
Kharwin was scheduled to appear in court for an asylum hearing in 2025, officials told NBC News, but he was arrested again in San Antonio shortly after the publishing of the NBC News report.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. (ICE)
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"Over the last five years, we have seen a significant shift in the way transnational criminal organizations are becoming increasingly involved in the movement of people in our hemisphere, most concerningly people from the Eastern hemisphere," a DHS official told NBC News. "We have seen the terrorist threat landscape become much more complex over the last few years than it was right after 9/11."
Neither DHS nor the White House immediately responded to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-scrambles-close-loophole-allowed-migrant-terror-watchlist-go-free