On Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to a Senate Intelligence Committee about the multitude of threats coming from the US Border. Wray told the Senate committee that the border crisis opened the US not only to criminal gangs, drug traffickers, and violent offenders — but also to terrorist threats from groups like ISIS as well.
“So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating [sic]. Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation,” Wray said.
In addition to the ISIS threat, Wray also highlighted the scourge of drug trafficking at the border.
“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that’s just on the fentanyl side,” Wray told the committee members.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) spent part of the hearing pressing for more details about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The Florida Republican emphasized concerning reports indicating signs of the gang’s expansion into the U.S. Rubio also noted that the brother of the illegal Venezuelan immigrant charged with the murder of Laken Riley is suspected of being a member of the violent gang. Wray responded, saying he could not speak to specific gangs or their numbers, but acknowledged that violent and dangerous criminals were entering the US through the southern border.
