An admitted member of the Lebanese Islamist terrorist organization Hezbollah has been caught by U.S. Border Patrol, the New York Post has reported.
Basel Bassel Ebbadi, a Lebanese migrant, was apprehended on March 9 attempting to cross the border near El Paso, where he told federal authorities, “I’m going to try to make a bomb.”
In documents obtained by the New York Post, Ebbadi admitted in a sworn interview to have been training with Hezbollah for seven years and being an active member of the terrorist organization guarding weapons locations for four years.
Ebbadi admitted to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that he trained for “jihad” and for killing people “that was not Muslim.”
NewsNation has also confirmed the reports with CBP sources, where the border agents described Ebbadi as “bloviating and acting with machismo.”
Ebbadi is now set to be deported.
Tensions over the southern border have only continued to increase in recent weeks, especially with battles over border wall construction and an impending review from the U.S. Supreme Court over a Texas immigration law that will allow state police to arrest foreign nationals for criminal trespass if caught illegally entering the United States from Mexico.
The concern regarding a potential “terrorist attack” committed by illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. has been a talking point for current presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, who spoke with Fox News about the rise in “military age men” entering across the southern border.
Trump's comments also came amid reports of the rising number of migrants from China.
Erik Prince, former CEO of the private military contracting company Blackwater, echoed this concern of a potential terrorist attack on American soil during a podcast. He said that due to the rise in illegal immigration, countries like “China, Iran, and possibly North Korea are looking to capitalize on the weakness of the United States right now, especially in an election year.”
December 2023 saw a record number of border encounters, with border agents experiencing over 300,000 encounters with foreign nationals crossing between Mexico and the U.S.
The issues of illegal immigration and the border crisis were further thrust into the spotlight after an illegal immigrant was arrested on charges of killing University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
During President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address, he addressed both the border crisis and the killing of Laken Riley, saying she was killed by an “illegal.”
In the aftermath of using the term, Biden has made apologies, saying he regrets using the word.
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