Katko on Attempted Assassination of President George W. Bush by ISIS-Sympathizer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. John Katko (R-NY), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, issued the following statement on the unsealed court documents charging an ISIS-sympathizer with conspiring to assassinate former President George W. Bush. The ISIS operative is charged with attempting to smuggle accomplices across the southern border from Mexico to help carry out the assassination of the former President.

“This is exactly the type of threat to the homeland we have been warning about for the last year and a half since President Biden took office. Under the Biden administration’s reckless border security policies, we have no idea who is entering our country as CBP and the Border Patrol are faced with a record-breaking surge of migrants at the border every month. An unprecedented number of known or suspected terrorists are being stopped in between ports of entry at the border attempting to evade Border Patrol and hundreds of dangerous gang members are encountered every month attempting to enter the country. To make a bad situation even worse, we recently learned it took DHS two weeks to authorize the arrest of a known terrorist who was released into the country’s interior. President Biden has sent a clear message to bad actors, criminals, and terrorists from around the world: come on in. This reality, coupled with a resurgent foreign terrorist threat emanating from President Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, is extremely troubling.

“This is what keeps me up at night. I fear what devastating result will finally be enough to get the Biden administration’s attention on the crisis it created at our border.

“I applaud federal and local law enforcement for stopping this terrifying plot. Once again, I urge Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration to start taking the dangerous threat to our homeland seriously before even more irreversible damage is done on our soil.”

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