After the Justice Department announced charges against an Iraqi militia leader for directing terror attacks inside the U.S., a national security expert warned of a “risky source” contributing to “jihad”-type terrorist activity inside America’s borders.
Iraqi national Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a senior member of the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hizballah terror group, is accused of orchestrating nearly 20 terrorist attacks across Europe and plotting attacks on Jewish institutions. Authorities also said al-Saadi publicly threatened President Donald Trump and his family.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said that vetting failures of supposed Iraqi and Afghan allies and an all-too-generous social welfare system have left the United States vulnerable to terrorism.
“It’s not just open borders. We offer so many pathways to immigrate here, either temporarily or permanently, and, unfortunately, every time you offer an immigration benefit, people will flock to it and often commit fraud to obtain it,” said Ries.
“When you combine these factors of a prior open border, millions of deportable aliens inside the U.S., common believers for jihad, then that leads to real terror threats inside the U.S.,” she said. “Al-Saadi calls on others to carry out jihad, and, unfortunately, there are many who are willing to do it.”
Ries explained that the U.S. intelligence community’s threat assessments for this year and 2025 included “discussion of Iranian commitment to decades-long attacks against the U.S. using surrogate networks inside the U.S.”
In the last year, Ries said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 11 Iranian nationals illegally present in the country, including a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member with Hezbollah ties, other IRGC members and operatives, a former Iranian army sniper and known terrorists.
One of these, Asif Merchant, who prosecutors described as a trained IRGC operative, was convicted in April of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terror.
From this, Ries said, “We have to assume there are more operatives inside the country.”
Besides the open-border policies under the Biden administration, Ries said, “There’s so much fraud in the system, whether that’s asylum fraud, whether that is marriage fraud, H-1B fraud, a plethora of visa types.”
“Also,” she continued, “We’ve had programs in place for decades to reward those who helped in some fashion the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s difficult to vet them thoroughly.”
“If people truly assisted the U.S. military, not some attenuated contractor scenario, which is very common, and they deserve protection, then let’s protect them,” she granted. “But that doesn’t mean bring them all here, because that is a risky source of threats inside the U.S.”
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Further, she said America’s generous immigration benefits have created an “unwieldy, unmanageable” system that “just endangers the U.S. from a national security perspective and economic security perspective, public safety, etcetera.”
“You need very thorough vetting for any immigration benefit that’s offered,” she explained, adding, “We need to be choosy, in particular, about the types of benefits we’re giving.”
Ries called for the “narrowing” of immigration into the country, saying leaders need to “be very thorough and deliberate about who we are bringing to the U.S.”
“We saw people come to the U.S. from at least 180 countries during the Biden administration. There’s only 192 other countries. So truly, most of the world came here,” she said, adding, “We as a nation can be and should be very choosy in particular about who we bring here and why.”
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She said al-Saadi’s case highlights these dangers, explaining “he doesn’t even have to have direct contact with those who have similar beliefs inside the U.S., but elsewhere in Europe, Canada, etc., who are perfectly willing to carry jihad against who they view as the infidels, Americans, Jews, et cetera.”
“So, ICE has a lot of work to do still to conduct mass deportations with terror threats at the top of the list,” Ries added.
