ISIS Smuggling Reports Create Border Firestorm Before Trump, Biden Debate

On the eve of the year's first presidential debate, a new media firestorm has been ignited over reports that 400 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with the aid of a human smuggling network linked to terror group ISIS.

Immigration is bound to be a core topic of discourse when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night face off in the first of two one-on-one debates. The event, which will be televised and hosted by CNN, will take place unusually early in the election cycle and without a studio audience.

Trump and other Republicans have condemned Biden's border policies amid a surge in encounters at the southern border since he took office, while the incumbent president has accused Trump of deliberately attempting to make the issue worse by blocking a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

On Wednesday, CNN and NBC reported on the identification of 400 migrants who were purportedly smuggled over the border by a network affiliated with ISIS, with both networks citing anonymous U.S. officials.

NBC reported that 150 of the 400 had been arrested, while the whereabouts of 50 are currently unknown. An official told the network that Immigration and Customs Enforcement hopes to arrest the missing migrants once they are found.

There has been no indication that the smuggled migrants are affiliated with the terror group themselves, with one official telling CNN that the "purpose of the network was to smuggle people, not bring in terrorists."

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday that claims of there being "400 migrants with ISIS ties" were "incorrect."

"We have not identified 400 people with potential ISIS ties," Mayorkas said. "Individuals who are identified to have those ties ... would be priorities for detention and removal."

Regardless, Republican lawmakers and other prominent conservatives leaped on the reports as evidence of Biden's immigration policies potentially inspiring a terror attack inside the U.S., with several claiming without evidence that the migrants do have ISIS ties.

"Over 400 illegal immigrants were brought to our country through an ISIS-affiliated network," Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Now, Mayorkas is lying about it. Border security is national security."

"CBP released over 400 illegal migrants with ties to ISIS, and over 50 ISIS-affiliated 'migrants' remain UNKNOWN," Republican Representative William Timmons of South Carolina wrote. "Joe Biden and his administration FAILED to act and now America's safety is compromised. We MUST secure the border."

"Now that the federal government is admitting that more than 400 ISIS-affiliated 'migrants' infiltrated the interior of the country and 50 of them remain at large—it's a good time to remind you of this man who walked right over the US border into Texas in January," Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote while sharing a video of a purported border crossing.

Newsweek reached out for comment to DHS via email late Wednesday night.

Earlier this month, eight men originating from Tajikistan who may be associated with ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, were reportedly arrested in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles after illegally entering the country through the U.S.-Mexico border.

NBC reported that the Tajik men were not smuggled into the country by the same network believed to be responsible for bringing in the 400, although most of the migrants in the larger group were also from nations in Central Asia.