Photo: Bloomberg Creative Photos / Bloomberg Creative Photos / Getty Images
An illegal Lebanese migrant was caught sneaking into the US. Basel Bassel Ebbadi admitted that he is a member of Hezbollah and was heading to New York when he was caught at the US border on March 9th near El Paso Texas.
According to a Border Patrol document obtained by the New York Post, when Ebbadi was questioned about why he was trying to enter the US he replied, "I'm going to try to make a bomb." Ebbadi later claimed that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hezbollah because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in, you can never get out,” according to internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents.
His training focused on "jihad" and killing people "that was not Muslim," Ebbadi said.
Ebbadi was isolated and scheduled for an interview with the Tactical Terrorism Response Team due to making "terroristic threats to personnel." According to internal records, he was targeted for deportation from the United States, although the destination country was unspecified.
Border agents documented 98 encounters with individuals listed on terror watch lists at both the northern and southern borders in fiscal year 2022. This number almost doubled to 172 in fiscal year 2023, which concludes on September 30.
As of the initial four months of 2024, federal data shows that 59 individuals have been apprehended.