Comments made on 4/18/23.

Ambassador sales I want to revisit uh Since representative Titus sort of Ridiculed or trivialized what you said About the terrorism risk of uncontrolled Southern border Um Uh it's my time ma'am Um I just was sitting here tallying and I I used a figure of 600 000 gotaways That was boy that's an old figure I Asked staff to give me a figure 1.3 million gotaways over the course of The Biden Administration and what border Patrol tells me is usually going to add In another 10 percent or so for got Aways that they don't even know about They have some reason to believe it's About another 10 or so but let's say 1.3 Million If one percent of that number Or folks intending to do harm in the Nature of terrorists something like that That'd be 13 000. That's 650 911 teams Uh do you have anything to add or do you Want to that which you weren't allowed To say during the time you were being Sort of uh talked over about the risk That is entailed there because it seems To me just as a matter of common sense That it's quite grave well thank you for The question Congressman I I agree with

You that the risk is grave and it's not Simply a matter of numbers it's a matter Of specific and concrete terrorist plots That have sought to exploit our Southern Border as I mentioned in my written Statement in 2011 uh the tehrad the Iranian regime in Tehran uh attempted to Plot with a Mexican drug cartel to carry Out an assassination of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States right Here in Washington we're going to bomb Cafe Milano in Georgetown that's not Simply a matter of Statistics that's an Actual plot that terrorists attempted to Carry out by exploiting weaknesses on Our Southern border and more recently in 2021 the mulas in Tehran were back at it Again attempting to work with an Individual in Mexico who had ties to Drug cartels in that country to Assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton here in the United States we know that the Iranian regime Is aware of vulnerabilities in our Southern border they have attempted to Exploit those vulnerabilities to carry Out terrorist attacks here in the United States I think we have to assume that Other terrorist groups including Terrorists in Afghanistan likewise are Aware of the vulnerabilities in our Border