In comments highlighted by Newsweek, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused President Joe Biden this week of offering indirect support for potential terrorism — a remarkably extreme, reality-disconnected assertion. Cruz did so in an episode of his podcast dated Monday, which was also the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States.
There is zero real-world evidence to substantially support Cruz’s version of events. “We have a vulnerability on our southern border, every month people are coming across who are on the terror watch list. The numbers dwarf the number of known terrorists who would come in prior to Joe Biden,” Cruz claimed, failing to note that many people encountered who are on such a list may be promptly removed from the U.S. “If you’re the next planner of 9/11, it’s obvious where you go. You go to Mexico and you come right across and Joe Biden and the idiots in his administration will fly you to wherever you want to go in this country and you can carry out your terror attack.”
Also per Newsweek, the number of individuals on the terror watch list, as it’s known, who have been encountered around the southern border has climbed to about 150 this year so far. While it’s obvious that any terror threat should be and will be taken seriously, Republican rhetoric about a so-called invasion and terrorists supposedly amassing at the border could obscure the fact that it’s been some 150 people this fiscal year. The idea that the Biden administration isn’t enforcing the law around immigration, the southern border, and guarding the United States against the threat of terrorism is simply not reflected — at all — by the facts. Personnel actually involved in enforcement around immigration and the border have repeatedly attested as much to Congress, praising the resources that have originated with higher levels of the federal government.
And ideas from Republicans are what — a wall? Utilizing lethal force? The latter has been pushed by sources including Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently running for president.
