Dozens of illegal migrants from terrorist nations entered the United States through Mexico late last year and are being held in a Texas Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center where they recently began a hunger strike.
The 54 detainees are nationals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and they are seeking asylum in the U.S. The migrants, who crossed into the U.S. in December, started a hunger strike last Wednesday to protest their detention at an ICE facility in El Paso, Judicial Watch reported.
Eleven of the detainees were released over the weekend, CBS 4 in El Paso reported.
The foreign nationals refused to eat or drink water, "and a leftist immigrant advocacy group blasted the government for jailing the Afghans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis without proper medical care," JW reported.
One of the detainees released from the ICE processing center over the weekend said he arrived in El Paso in December after traveling from South America to Juarez, Mexico. He is a national of Bangladesh, his name is MD Nasir Uddin, and he claims to be a refugee seeking asylum.
In the local news report, Uddin complains that he was jailed for no valid reason and was not provided with an interpreter, legal documents or judgments against him.
"We are not criminals, and they don’t have any proof of criminals," Uddin told the local news outlet.
Four more Pakistanis reported crossing into California
Meanwhile, a U.S. border agent informed WND that four more migrants from a terrorist nation crossed over the Mexican border into Southern California just in the last few days.
"I can confirm we got those four from Pakistan, and they went up to the Adelanto Detention Center in Victorville, California. I imagine they're still there," the agent told WND. "I'm sure they're going to claim asylum.
"Our four crossed over from the Calexico and El Central areas in southeast California. But we've heard that El Paso is getting hit as well."
In May, WND broke the story that a DHS touring bus was caught transporting a busload of Muslim Somalis and other Africans up to a detention center in Victorville, California, after they were caught crossing the border illegally. Their fate is unknown, but an immigration lawyer told WND they would have likely been released into society with a court date for their asylum hearing.
Yet, around the same time that the Somalis were caught and briefly detained, 27 persecuted Chaldean Christians from Iraq also crossed into the U.S from Mexico, and they were detained for six months before most were deported. The few who have not been deported have been charged criminally with providing false information on their asylum applications.
Just last month the U.S. issued a terrorism alert warning that Islamic militants in Bangladesh may be targeting Westerners.
"The U.S. government continues to receive information that terrorist groups in South Asia may also be planning attacks in the region, possibly against U.S. government facilities, U.S. citizens, or U.S. interests," the bulletin states. "Terrorists have demonstrated their willingness and ability to attack locations where U.S. citizens or Westerners are known to congregate or visit."
Denials about border crossings exposed as lies
Chris Ferrell, director of investigations and research for Judicial Watch, told WND the federal government has repeatedly denied that any dangerous foreign nationals were crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
"The fact that they're organized the way they are and going through this supposed hunger strike and then the fact that they've got legal advocacy, I think those are new facets to this story," he said. "And the larger point is, I've had the director of Texas Department of Public Safety, DHS and the National Security Council all deny that there were any dangerous nationals crossing the border. Suddenly in last two weeks, the Texas DPS director acknowledged he's had to hire linguists for the detainees, so it's a very interesting reversal taking place."
Watch CBS-4 El Paso report on the 54 illegals on hunger strike:
Ferrell said the only reason news leaked out about the 54 asylum seekers from terrorist nations was because of the hunger strike, which caused a leftist advocacy group to bring the case to the attention of a local TV station. There is no telling how many more from dangerous countries are being held by ICE and how many have been released into U.S. cities and towns.
"Evidently, it's not just a matter of a nationality or ethnicity as to whether ICE releases one of these people. There appears to be some other test or qualification that's not entirely clear," Ferrell said. "It's unclear what the objective status is for allowing them in. I've seen several documentaries that conclude it's impossible for Christians from the Middle East to get into the U.S."
Hotbeds of terror
Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been known as the headquarters of al-Qaida's global leadership, and the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism offers all the juicy details.
The fact that individuals from these three terrorist nations have made it all the way to the U.S. through the Mexican border is alarming, Ferrell said.
Judicial Watch contacted officials from several Homeland Security agencies – including ICE and U.S. Border Patrol – but none would comment on the 54 Afghans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis being held in El Paso.
"The reality is that it's unlikely this story would have been covered if not for the hunger strike and involvement of a publicity-seeking immigrant advocacy organization," Judicial Watch reported. "In fact, the focus of the El Paso news report is the 'critical medical condition' of some of the detainees and the fact that one was held in solitary confinement."
The reality is that this is part of a very serious issue involving the dangerously porous Southern border, Ferrell said.
Judicial Watch published a story recently detailing how Mexican drug cartels are smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. To elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers, they use remote farm roads – rather than interstates – and they are being transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road.
The foreigners are classified as special interest aliens by the U.S. government, which prefers to keep this from the American public, according to Judicial Watch's investigation.