Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said over the weekend that FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed to him that a trafficking network exists that smuggles illegal aliens into the U.S. who have ties to ISIS.
Rubio made the remarks during a Sunday interview on ABC News’ “This Week” while discussing ISIS-K’s devastating terrorist attack in Moscow late last week, which killed well over a hundred people.
“ISIS-K, ISIS-Khorasan, is largely the Afghan-wing of ISIS,” Rubio said. “It’s reconstituted itself as we warned would happen when we had this disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. One of the reasons why we didn’t want to withdraw precipitously is because you gave them operating space to reorganize themselves and plan externally. And since that time, they’ve attacked inside of Afghanistan.”
Rubio noted that ISIS-K was responsible for the deadly suicide blast that left 13 American service members dead at Kabul International Airport back in 2021 during President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdraw from the country.
They also recently conducted a major attack in Iran that resulted in more than 80 deaths.
“And they’ll do it here in the homeland,” Rubio said. “I think we should be very concerned as the FBI director confirmed to me that there is a wing – there is a trafficking network out there that specializes in moving people. They do it for profit, moving people and migrants around the world, including across our southern border, who have links to ISIS.”
“I think common sense tells you, if they run a trafficking network of people, they would most certainly use it to move operatives into the United States,” he continued. “So, I’m not claiming there’s an imminent threat to the U.S., but I am saying that border situation and that existence of that network is a threat to the United States. If they could do what they did in Moscow in the United States, they would do it in a heartbeat. They want to do it.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
Rubio noted that under former President Donald Trump, “ISIS was basically out of business,” but now, under a weak Biden administration, “they’ve reconstituted themselves.”
“And part of it is, once we leave Afghanistan and we’re no longer there to conduct regular strikes, they can now operate openly. No matter how much the Taliban wants to take them on, they can’t. They don’t have the capability to do it,” he said. “And these guys have found a place to operate from. They need real estate. They need land and places where they can organize and do external plotting.”
“Now, it’s a lot easier for them to get into Iran. It’s a lot easier for them to get into Russia and do these things,” he added. “But their aspirations go beyond Russia and Iran. They would love to do what they did in Moscow here inside the United States. And it’s something we have to be very vigilant about when we have a border in which 9 million people have come across in the last three years.”
WATCH:
After ISIS-K claims responsibility for terror attack in Russia, Sen. Marco Rubio tells @JonKarl that the U.S. needs to remain "very vigilant" about border security.
“They would love to do what they did in Moscow here inside the United States.” https://t.co/kVytjz9qLw pic.twitter.com/fMvGLKR4yY
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 24, 2024