Two Yemeni men were apprehended while illegally crossing the border at the Calexico Port of Entry. Both were transported to El Centro Processing center for immigration and criminal history screening, according to an archived Customs and Border Protection(CBP) press release published in full by The National Pulse on Tuesday morning. The primary duty of the border protection is to "enforce all applicable U.S. laws, including against illegal immigration, narcotics smuggling, and illegal importation." Immigration reform has been a focus of the Biden administration with many saying that the situation at the border is a crisis with potentially devastating economic and homeland security implications.
The El Centro Sector of the United States Border Patrol (USBP) is located in Southern California in the Imperial Valley. According to the El Centro Sector website, the border comprises 71 linear miles along the International Boundary with Mexico from the Jacumba Mountains in the west to the Imperial Sand Dunes in the east. The sector has four Border Patrol stations located in the cities of El Centro, Calexico, Indio, and Riverside, according to the website. The terrain consists of some mountains and agricultural land but is primarily desert with temperatures sometimes exceeding 120 degrees. It can be dangerous for those who migrate as well as for the border control agents. The approximate boundaries of the border can be found below.
Screen Capture/El Centro Border Control Region
One man, apprehended on Jan. 29 at approximately 1:10 a.m. three miles west of the Calexico Port of Entry, was taken for processing at the El Centro border protection station. The illegal alien is 33 years old and was listed on both the FBI’s Terrorism Watch List and on the No-Fly list. At the time of apprehension, agents "found a cellular sim card hidden underneath the insole of his shoe."
The other man, age 26, was apprehended on Mar. 30 at approximately 11:30 p.m. He is also on both the FBI’s Terrorism Watch List and the No-Fly list. He is in federal custody pending removal. They were traveling separately.
Steve Bannon, on episode 853 of the War Room Pandemic podcast, interviewed veteran journalist and national security expert Todd Bensman, author of a book published in February called, "America's Covert Border War: The Untold Story of the Nation's Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration."
Bensman is currently a Texas-based Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Bensman is no newcomer to counterterrorism issues. According to the CIS website bio, for nine years, through August 2018, Bensman led counterterrorism intelligence for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division in its multi-agency fusion center. Prior to that, he was a journalist for 23 years, covering national security after 9/11 as a staff writer for major publications.
Bensman told Bannon that it is a "high bar of danger" to get on the No-Fly list. "Just being on Watchlist is bad enough, but the No-Fly list is a big red alert, ring the bell, five-alarm national security fire," Bensman added:
"As the news began to spread on Twitter and other social media platforms, by this morning CBP removed that press release. I don't know why they removed that press release...but my guess is that the Democrats and Liberal activists have put a tremendous amount of energy into squelching the narrative that there is a problem down there with Jihadists reaching the border and crossing the border—that that's a threat issue.
We saw that most recently with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who returned last month from the border with stories like this—that Yemenis, three Yemenis had crossed that border who were on the Terror Watchlist and the Washington Post, The Voice of America, everybody, just jumped on him, said he was a liar...and probably CBP public affairs didn't check with the bosses before they put this thing up...just naturally put up a piece of news like this and were ordered to take it down, probably from the White House. This thing was a grenade that blew up their bogus narrative."
On Feb. 3, CBP reported the arrest on the Yuma Sector of a group of 11 Iranian citizens, five females and six males, who illegally crossed the border. Iran is a Special Interest Country.
As reported by The National Pulse, the press release was suddenly removed from the CBP website on April 6th after having been posted on Monday. No reason was given for the removal. Neither man has been identified publicly. The Pulse requested comment from the CBP about the removal of the press release but, as of this writing, has not heard back.
