A study published in Homeland Security Today reveals an ISIS plot to send terrorists through the U.S.-Mexico border by taking advantage of smuggling and migration routes.

The report references an ISIS fighter named Abu Henricki (whose name was changed in the report). He’s a Canadian citizen with dual citizenship with Trinidad and was captured in Syria in early May.

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The International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) interviewed Henricki and discovered that ISIS planned to have terrorists travel from Syria to Central America — and then infiltrate America through the southern border.

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“The plan came from someone from the New Jersey state of America,” he explained. “I was going to take the boat from Puerto Rico into Mexico. He was going to smuggle me in.”

“They wanted to use these people [to attack inside the U.S.] because they were from these areas,” Henricki added.

The researchers note that while past numbers estimating terrorists coming in through the border are debatable, the uncovered plot should be troubling to everyone.

“Whatever one thinks of President Donald Trump’s heightened rhetoric about the U.S.-Mexico border and his many claims that it is vulnerable to terrorists, ISIS apparently also thought so, as knowledge of this ISIS plot came from the mouth of a now-repentant ISIS cadre,” they write.

Here is the interview with the captured fighter …

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In January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that “I reject your facts” about the terror threat at the southern border.

The biggest point of contention for Pelosi was an unwillingness to accept the fact that terrorists with ill intent for American citizens may be trying to enter the country.

“I reject your facts,” Pelosi said, ignorantly dismissing the secretary.

“These aren’t my facts,” Nielsen fired back. “These are the facts.”

Will Pelosi, Democrats, and the media finally admit to the threat?

Nielsen was explaining to lawmakers at the time that border officials had apprehended 17,000 criminals the previous year, including 3,000 people with terrorist ties.

The New York Times editorial board wrote a column shockingly demanding that Congress give President Trump the money he is requesting for border security. Even then, they claimed there’s “no invasion of murderers, drug cartels or terrorists.”

Will Pelosi, Democrats, and the media finally admit to the threat?

Build the wall. Henricki said that, while he wasn’t privy to every detail of the plot, he assumed it would involve a “bombing mission” with the aim of taking out financial targets in New York.

The researchers noted that this interview “demonstrate(s) that ISIS has discussed and operationalized ways in which their operatives could infiltrate our borders and cause harm to our citizens.”

Of Trump’s concerns at the border, they conclude “it would be erroneous — and detrimental to our safety and security — to outright downplay the potential terrorist threats emanating from our borders.”

This piece originally appeared in The Political Insider and is used by permission.

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