Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have arrested 219 known or suspected terrorists in the United States.
This marks a 655 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year under former President Joe Biden, when only 29 such arrests were made,
according to newly obtained Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data published by the New York Post..
Among the dozens caught in the raids was Harpreet Singh, an Indian national who illegally crossed into the U.S. from Mexico on January 27, 2022. At that time, Border Patrol agents released him with a future court date, according to a DHS official.
The Biden administration is to blame for allowing Singh to roam the country for over three years,
DHS Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Post. “The Biden administration not only let a wanted terrorist into our country, but after he was apprehended by border agents, they released him into the interior,” she added.
According to the DHS, Singh is one of India’s “most wanted men” for financing terrorism, recruitment and planning a grenade attack on a police station and at a retired police officer’s home in Punjab with the intent of killing and intimidating law enforcement.
He is also wanted in India for multiple violent extortion and threatening operations.
Indian officials believe Singh is a high-ranking operative directly connected to Harwinder Singh Rinda, a notorious figure in Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), a Pakistan-based terrorist organization designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization back in 2002. Founded in the late 1970s, the extremist religious group has been involved in assassinations, armed attacks and bombings, DHS says.
Singh was captured last week by ICE agents in Sacramento, California.
He evaded capture by using untraceable burner phones and encrypted apps,
the FBI said in the statement announcing his arrest.
2024 Sees Immigration Record
Before Trump’s inauguration, more than 271 thousand migrants were deported from the U.S. in 2024. However, this accounted for only 9 percent of the 2.9 million migrants who entered the country that year. As reported earlier by V4NA, ICE carried out more deportations in the 2024 fiscal year, according to their annual report, than at any time since the Obama administration deported 316 thousand undocumented migrants a decade ago, reveals the annual report. Of those deported in 2024, nearly 89 thousand were convicted or accused criminals.
Under the Biden administration, immigration reached record highs — with more migrants arriving in a single year than ever before in U.S. history, even surpassing the peak of the Ellis Island era.
Cover photo: Illustration (Photo: AFP)
