In June 2024, eight individuals from Tajikistan suspected of terrorist activities and connections to ISIS were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in major U.S. cities.
These suspects had been monitored by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for several months, even though their background checks had come back clear when they crossed the border. Current border controls, such as they are, failed to detect anything suspicious when these people legally entered the country.
Between October 2019 and June 2024, approximately 11 million unauthorized migrants attempted to enter the country, estimated to be only 78% of the number of people crossing the border without inspection. The risk America faces lies not in the large number of undocumented migrants but specifically in the significant number of high-risk individuals. A recent report by the House Judiciary Committee states that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered “more than 1.7 million special interest aliens nationwide,” indicating the growing threat facing the United States.
With many enemies seeking an opportunity to cause harm to the country, the U.S. faces a heightened threat of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives (CBRNE) attack on its soil more than at any time in recent history. South American cartel operations heighten the CBRNE threat due to their long-standing expertise in human trafficking across the southern border, alongside drug smuggling and sex trafficking. Consequently, many unidentified and undocumented individuals within the U.S. may already be collaborating with our country’s adversaries.
Numerous targets for bad actors
The cartels are largely responsible for human smuggling across our southern border. They have perfected and developed various methodologies to bring almost anyone into the country, even to the extent of providing false identities and documents. Ideology is irrelevant to the cartels. Profit is their motivation. An attack that causes America to change its foreign policy or that distracts law enforcement would enhance their drug and human trafficking revenues across the southern border. Hence, assisting in a CBRNE attack – for a price – would be perceived as a profitable, desirable business transaction.
Unfortunately for law enforcement agencies, the targets for CBRNE attacks are numerous. The ideal objective would produce a high number of casualties or disable America in some way, such as an attack on logistics infrastructure (a cargo terminal at a port or airport), the financial system (a stock exchange or the Federal Reserve), or even a major sporting event.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a risk rating process for these events, the Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR). SEAR assigns a risk-based rating to all events, ranking them from one to five and determining the security required. However, the problem of how the authorities can effectively protect every event across the country remains unsolved. We have already seen law enforcement arresting Harun Abdul-Malik Yener in 2024, who was allegedly plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
Challenges finding enemy cells, CBRNE materials
While the consequences of a CBRNE attack would be disastrous, finding the materials or the terror cells before the attack is extremely difficult; it’s akin to the old cliché of finding a needle in a haystack. America’s intelligence and counter-terrorism departments need to be lucky all the time; the threat actors need to be lucky just once!
A nuclear attack is the hardest for a third party to accomplish due to the difficulty in obtaining the materials and constructing a device. But the risk is far from zero if enemy nation-states assist. Other weapons in the CBRNE range are also hard to identify, as law enforcement officials must have the technology available at the point of contact to analyze them.
Making matters worse, the materials needed to construct such a weapon are readily available within the United States. Some ingredients required for a chemical or biological weapon are widely available for legitimate commercial use, making it challenging to preempt constructing a deadly device.
Finding the cells and the threat actors before an attack is also complex and requires a “whole-of-government approach.” All government departments and agencies must cooperate and openly share intelligence and data, including their movements, connections, and the money trail. This task can be more complicated in sanctuary cities as those law enforcement agencies may not fully cooperate with federal agencies when it comes to immigration issues.
Threat mitigation strategies
Despite the challenges, U.S. authorities can prevent a CBRNE attack in several ways. The starting point is and should always be financial intelligence. The U.S. is well versed in using this approach against a variety of nefarious individuals and has dedicated departments focused on this sole responsibility, with proven intelligence-based tools and capabilities, such as the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
Money is central to the activities of threat actors and the cells cannot operate using our established and compliance-driven financial systems. Effective financial intelligence implemented by our intelligence agencies will expose the players and their networks. Without money to pay cartels for smuggling people and weapons and for providing safe houses and protection inside the country, threat actors will face greater risks and difficulties in setting up an attack. Despite the ideological rhetoric we see daily, nobody works for free.
Financial intelligence is an established strategy, and as the threats against our country grows so does the volume of data that needs to be analyzed and verified. Embracing digital transformation and artificial intelligence will assist in data management and analysis and successfully identify suspicious transactions. Sharing information of interest with other countries is also critical, but this adds to the quantities of data that must be analyzed. In today’s digital world, the ability to monitor and collect information from the digital world – such as cryptocurrency transactions – must also be enhanced.
Furthermore, all American ports of entry (land, sea and air) and law enforcement assets must have access to presumptive analysis technologies that can quickly and accurately identify CBRNE substances and explosives.
As part of the prevention effort, those immigrants identified as risks, of which there are more than 1.7 million, must be located, prosecuted and deported without delay. Concurrently, all border controls must be improved to prevent additional threat actors from entering the country.
At the recent G20 summit in Brazil, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the world is “currently entering a new period of turbulence and change.” The U.S. is caught at the center of this turbulence, and it needs to initiate immediate, collaborative efforts to prevent a CBRNE attack on U.S. soil.
