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Attorney General Pam Bondi was questioned Monday during a House budget hearing about Iranian nationals who entered the country illegally during the Biden administration after the Trump administration warned the conflict with Iran raised threat levels in the United States.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, asked if the attorney general knew how many Iranian nationals in the United States have been convicted of crimes. Bondi said she was unsure, but that more than 1,000 entered the country during the last administration.
“And I can tell you, we are on high alert, and everyone is looking at that very closely,” Bondi said.
TRUMP CALLS IRAN RESPONSE TO STRIKE ON NUCLEAR FACILITIES ‘WEAK,’ SUGGESTS RETURN TO DIPLOMACY
U.S. Border Patrol arrested 1,504 Iranians at the southern border during President Joe Biden’s term, and nearly half of them, or 729, were released into the United States, according to a senior Customs and Border Protection source.
Bondi’s remarks echo those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which issued a notice one day prior saying that the Iran conflict “is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States.” The DHS cited the possibility of extremists in the United States “independently mobilizing to violence” if Iranian leaders were to call for it. The department also said cyberattacks and incidents of antisemitism could increase.
Gonzales asked Bondi about the threat of Iranian “sleeper cells,” to which the attorney general said she could “not talk about that in this setting.”
The line of questioning during a hearing about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year came amid a rapidly evolving conflict in the Middle East that Trump chose to intervene in over the weekend.
OVER 700 IRANIAN NATIONALS RELEASED INTO THE US DEPSITE TERRORISM CONCERNS
The Trump administration carried out airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, leading to Iran launching a missile attack on a U.S. military base near Doha, Qatar, on Monday. Trump said the Iranians gave “early notice” of the offensive and that no casualties occurred as a result of the attack.
Later Monday, Trump announced that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran would take effect in a matter of hours, though ceasefire deals have fallen through in the past, and it remains unclear if the agreement will hold.
The DOJ brought an indictment against three men last year in connection to a murder-for-hire scheme that allegedly originated in Iran that involved assassinating Trump before the 2024 election, as well as killing a journalist. One of the men remains at large. He is an Afghan national but was allegedly being paid by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an Iran-based militant group.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said at the time of the indictment.
Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
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