Migrants from Tajikistan, a country known for being an ISIS breeding ground, have increased greatly in number crossing the southern border under President Joe Biden, the New York Post reported Thursday.
More than 1,500 Tajiks have entered the U.S. from Mexico between October 2020 and May 2024, the Post reported.
The outlet's report was based on leaked border data.
Just last week, two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sources told the Post they arrested six people from Tajikistan over the previous week after the FBI contacted the agency to warn it.
CNN later reported that eight Tajikistan nationals are located in the U.S. on immigration charges following the discovery of potential ties to terrorism. The arrests were made in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.
The latest report says at least 500 Tajiks have been caught in the U.S. in 2024 after only 26 total during the previous 14 years.
Tajikistan, a small Central Asian country, borders both China and Afghanistan. It has been a major source of terrorists for ISIS and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K).
ISIS-K Tajiks were responsible for a massive Moscow concert hall attack that killed 145 people and wounded hundreds more on March 22.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Thursday sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding a full accounting of the eight Tajikistani nationals arrested last week.
"These individuals crossed our southern border illegally and were released into the United States, but — even more troubling — these suspected terrorists allegedly passed through screening by Customs and Border Protection with clean criminal background checks," Blackburn wrote to Mayorkas and Wray.
"Despite being 'fully vetted' by border officials, it has been revealed that these individuals have ties to ISIS. Given these disturbing revelations, Americans are rightly concerned about threats to our homeland."
While testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, Wray said he was concerned illegal migrants entering the U.S. at the southern border could produce another 9/11 terrorist attack.
"There is a particular network that has ... where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about," Wray told the senators, "and we've been spending enormous amounts of effort with our partners investigating exactly what that network is up to."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.