Federal officials have confirmed to NBC News that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations are looking into a group of Uzbek nationals who crossed the Mexican border this year and requested asylum in the United States. According to new intelligence, they were helped by a human trafficker with ties to a group that the United States has designated as a “foreign terrorist organization,” the officials said.
According to sources who had seen the intelligence data, the smuggling network was situated in Turkey, and the person who assisted in bringing the Uzbeks to the United States had tenuous ties to the Islamic State terrorist organization, also known as ISIS.
However, there was and is still no indication that any of the people helped by this network are connected to a foreign terrorist organization or are actively planning a terrorist attack in the United States, according to National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in a statement on Tuesday.
The investigation was initially covered by CNN.
About 15 of the 120 Uzbek immigrants who entered the country through the network of smugglers located in Turkey have been traced by the FBI, according to authorities.
According to a representative for the FBI, the organization “has not identified any particular terrorism plot linked to foreign nationals who just entered the United States at the southern border.”
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security claim that all of the Uzbek immigrants underwent routine inspection by Customs and Border Protection officers when they entered the country and that no information in any of the government’s terrorist databases suggested any of them posed a threat. In anticipation of their court appearances, they were then allowed to enter the country.
After receiving the intelligence after the event, the FBI set out to track down the immigrants and do another background check on them. According to law enforcement officials, the FBI collaborated with Turkish law enforcement to assist in the apprehension of the smuggler.
According to officials, the smuggler did not assist the migrants with any terrorist intentions and at most had ISIS sympathies, according to NBC News. The FBI is however still seeking for a few of the migrants.
According to a senior law enforcement official, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security have implemented new targeting guidelines at the border to screen any further migrants connected to the network who are still attempting to cross.
“Since this information became accessible, those encountered at the border who fit the criteria associated with people who were helped by this network are being placed into accelerated removal, being thoroughly vetted against public safety and national security systems, and generally imprisoned pending removal,” said Watson of the National Security Council.
Additionally, authorities in airports and so-called transit countries have been alerted.
Officials said that the instance demonstrates that the technology is operational and that it performed as planned for the greater intelligence community.
The quantity of persons entering the country from Mexico has not resulted in any degradation or gaps in border screening, according to DHS.