U.S. counterterrorism agencies are on high alert for potential retaliation after the American government joined Israel in launching a coordinated operation named Epic Fury against Iran over the weekend.
Already, at least two Americans have died and more than a dozen have been injured after a 53-year-old gunman, reportedly clothed in an Iranian flag T-shirt and “Property of Allah” sweatshirt, opened fire at an Austin bar one day after the strikes commenced. While it’s unclear if this alleged terrorism is linked to a larger revenge campaign led by Iran or a lone wolf sympathizer attack, the consensus is that there is a heightened threat of Islamic violence against Americans on their own soil.
It’s no secret that Iranian terrorists are here in the U.S. and have been for nearly 50 years. For decades now, Iran worked to embed its Hezbollah operatives in America and nearby Latin American countries such as Nicaragua. These sleeper cells, often operated by a covert wing of Hezbollah dubbed “Unit 910,” are designed to coordinate and carry out “assassinations and attacks” when activated.
Iranian intelligence services have also demonstrated a recent presence in the U.S. Several of the country’s foreign intelligence operatives were indicted in New York in 2021 for allegedly plotting to kidnap a “U.S. journalist and human rights activist.”
Fears that Islamic radicals were solidifying their hold in the hometowns of Americans only increased when Democrats and the Biden administration opened the floodgates for millions of foreigners, including Iranians, to illegally enter and stay in the U.S. This drastic lapse in national security came just one year after Iran vowed revenge against President Donald Trump and Americans for the January 2020 assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.
Between the 2021 and 2024 fiscal years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 1,504 Iranian nationals. Nearly half of them, 729, were ultimately released into the U.S. Tens of thousands of suspected terrorists also took advantage of Democrats’ catch-and-release regime to wheedle their way into the states.
Some Iranians could have slipped into the U.S. as some of the estimated 1.7 million gotaways who evaded Border Patrol after finding their way through the southern border, many of whom took flights to countries south of the border and then traveled north. Others were smuggled across the U.S.-Canada border with “fraudulent or altered passports.” Though under Biden, they didn’t really have to sneak around.
Despite originating from one of the 24 nations designated as “national security concern[s]” due to Islamic terrorism affiliations, Iranians were affirmatively authorized entry to America as “special interest aliens” (SIAs) under the Biden administration’s CBP One app expansions.
There is little evidence that those who entered and stayed in the states as SIAs underwent the “rigorous security vetting”promised by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Records obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, for example, showed Biden’s Department of Homeland Security approved entry for 99.7 percent of the foreigners who applied for it through CBP One between January and September 2023.
“Because these approved entrances have remained unknown to the American public, the Biden administration has not been questioned about whether it conducted enhanced security screening for these migrants (as was the practice with those caught crossing illegally) before affirming them for parole through ports,” CIS’s then-Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman wrote in 2023.
Despite the threats posed by the record-breaking influx of illegal border crossings under Biden, Democrats are scheming to stall DHS funding unless Republicans agree to kneecap Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol’s ability to arrest and deport illegal aliens.
Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
