The Biggest Threat to U.S. National Security Is Not What You Imagine

The most important and awesome responsibility of the President of the United States, and his military and national security team members, is the defense of our nation.  As Commander in Chief, President Biden has a solemn vow to protect the homeland and every American citizen. You are on that list; you are in a protected status as a citizen of the United States.

Our actions and reactions to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are vital to the defense of the nation.  The safety of our citizens and our national security interests around the world are impacted—and can be threatened at times—by these four major adversaries.  Most of the U.S. defense budget each year addresses these concerns and the potential threats that might emanate from Russian aggression, the nuclear threat of Iran, the unpredictable danger that North Korea poses for South Korea and our Indo-Pacific allies, and the multifaceted threats from our adversary the People’s Republic of China.  The Pentagon continually monitors these countries, with multiple plans of action in case the unthinkable happens.

Presently, these four nations are most definitely not the biggest threat to our national security.  We prepare for war, but it is highly unlikely (at the moment) that any of these adversaries is going to launch a direct attack on the United States of America.  We are still the most powerful nation on earth with a sophisticated and lethal military.  China and Russia know, for example, that their use of nuclear weapons against the U.S. would be the end of their world as they know it.  Mass destruction by the U.S. is a powerful deterrent.  For the most part, it keeps the peace.

On the other hand, the largest threat to national security is largely ignored by the Biden Administration.  That threat is the southern border of the U.S. and the almost 2 million illegal migrants who have crossed the border—just during the Biden presidency—without ever being apprehended or questioned by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).  This ongoing threat is not the fault of the CBP.  They are overwhelmed and under-supported by the leadership at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.  This threat is not on the level of all-out war—but is much more likely than a war.

Since Joe Biden became President, almost 5 million people have been detained trying to illegally enter the United States, many of them simply released into the U.S.  However, the CBP has observed 1.2 million crossing without being caught.  Officials estimate there may be another 600,000-plus who have entered the U.S. whom the border authorities do not even know about.  We literally do not know who these people are, what their intentions might be, or where they are in the U.S.  We do know the CBP has detained 137 people at the border who are on the terrorism watchlist since Joe Biden took office.

Presently, the potentially largest threat to the national security of the United States is the unknown number of terrorists who are likely among the approximately two million people who we know are now in the U.S.—the so-called “gotaways”—who were never stopped or questioned by the border patrol. Simple math would indicate with the so-called “law of averages,” that if we have stopped 137 people connected to terrorist groups—there is a significant additional number of people with connections to terrorist groups who are part of that other 2 million now in the U.S.  The flow continues, with 2,400 illegal migrants crossing each day without being apprehended, the “gotaways.”

It is incomprehensible that the Biden Administration continues to ignore this clear and present danger to national security.  Not only do they ignore it, but it also seems they actively enact policies and procedures that increase this threat and exacerbate the problem of terrorists entering the U.S.  One disturbing example of this is the Biden Administration’s recent decision to eliminate one of the most effective tools in defending the border and the homeland–the “aerostats,” balloon/blimp-type devices that travel along the border as an eye in the sky. These aerostats can reach an altitude of 3,000 feet and assist the border patrol in surveilling miles of the border, especially places where there is no border wall or barrier. The Biden Administration announced they would remove most of the aerostats due to budget constraints, a shortsighted and unbelievable act of carelessness.

It is difficult to imagine that the 137 people apprehended who were found to have connections to assorted terrorist organizations—or the possible hundreds of others not caught and now in the U.S. somewhere—are all lone wolf actors.  Likely, significant numbers of these individuals are sent and directed by foreign terror organizations.  There is the possibility that many of them are here on a collective mission.  Their very presence raises the possibility of a major terrorist attack in our homeland.

It is highly unlikely that the exponential increase in the number of terror-connected individuals illegally entering the U.S. is a mere coincidence.  In the final year of the previous administration, only 15 people on the terror watchlist were caught; the year before that, there were three apprehended.  In President Biden’s first year in office, that number rose to 98.  So far this fiscal year, another 39 people on that list have been caught.

As I have written before, we have been acutely aware of the risk of terrorist attacks since 9/11.  We have experienced multiple terror-inspired attacks since then by lone wolf actors.  With the influx in the last two years of terrorists attempting to enter the U.S.—others not caught and their whereabouts unknown—we are facing the possibility of another 9/11-style incident.  If it happens, we will not need another 9/11 Commission like we had after the deadly attacks using airliners.  That commission attempted to investigate how the terrorists were able to successfully band together and kill Americans.

When it happens again, we need only look to our porous border and a government that refused to aggressively secure it for our answer as to how it happened.  We will know how our enemies successfully attacked the American homeland by simply crossing our southern border without being confronted.  We pray this never happens, but it is a real possibility.