According to an article written by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) titled “Border Security Is National Security”, A Sheriff of El Paso warned in the summer of 2006, “Intelligence indicates that terrorist organizations are increasingly probing the U.S./Mexico border…Mexican drug trafficking and human smuggling organizations use their knowledge of the border to assist terrorist cell members in their attempts to exploit the United States…Congress recently held field hearings in Texas and other states to examine how the porous border impacts national security. Local law enforcement officials were invited to share their experiences. All expressed frustration with the lack of resources and attention being paid to the U.S. border…A Val Verde County border sheriff explained the problem as a ‘crisis,’ saying, ‘…many people whose intentions were unknown were coming into our country.'”
“Directors of CIA and FBI Warn Southern Border Threatens Homeland Security” – Federation for Immigration Reform 4/05 – “Terrorists and WMDs May Be Slipping Across Lawless Mexican Border CIA Director Porter Goss, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Admiral James Loy, warned the Senate Intelligence Committee terrorist organizations are taking advantage of our poorly protected southern border to infiltrate operatives and, potentially, weapons of mass destruction to our country. ‘Several al-Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons,’ Loy testified. Among the terrorists specifically cited in intelligence reports is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian national leading the violent insurgency in Iraq. U.S. intelligence believes that al-Qaeda is working with an El Salvadoran gang, Mara Salvatrucha (a.k.a. MS-13), to smuggle terrorists across the Mexican border. See MS-13 story.”
Point that some Islamist militant groups are originating from Latin American countries, which increases the threat of terrorists crossing over the southwestern border, and which may favor stronger enforcement measures such as a 700-mile fence:“Countering Terrorism Mobility” report by an Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future of the Migration Policy Institute, February, 2006 – “The terrorist threat to the homeland (as wells as to our citizens and interests abroad), is characterized by small cells that come from around the globe—not just from the Middle East but from or through Canada, where the government has identified numerous Islamist militant groups; from Europe with its alienated Muslim population groups; from southern cone transit points—Caribbean, Mexican, Central American, and Latin American— and from many other areas of the world.”
“the new significance of border and other screening points for preemptive operations is gradually being absorbed by the national security community.” – “Countering Terrorism Mobility” report by an Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future of the Migration Policy Institute, February, 2006 – “Border and transportation controls are recognized as crucial in protecting the population from a range of security problems—the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction, illegal financial and product flows, and epidemics…There is a deepening tactical and policy consensus on the need for security protections methodically layered into the different aspects of our border system. [There is a need to] Prioritiz[e] the illicit market in travel, transportation, and immigration-related services as an arena for deterrence, enforcement, and domestic and international lawmaking […and for…], Deploying more resources historically associated only with the intelligence community to track and disrupt terrorist mobility, [and for] Treating the borders of the United States and those of other states as critical, powerful, and severely underused counterterrorism resources, not merely as lines drawn against illegal immigration (or military invasion)”
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