Patel, McCormick warn foreign terror threats inside US grew during Biden years

FBI Director Kash Patel warned Wednesday that terror sleeper cell threats in the U.S. are "real," and Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., linked the danger to past border policies and accused Democrats of undermining homeland security in a funding fight.

Considering flaring concerns over sleeper cell threats during the United States' war on Iran, Fox News Digital asked the FBI director to revisit the Biden administration's previous focus on White supremacy as the leading domestic threat. Patel pointed to recent attacks as evidence of growing danger from foreign-linked terrorism. 

"President Trump has prioritized defending the homeland and resources to do so. These two recent tragic examples (in Virginia and in Michigan) are an unfortunate, tragic reminder of what happens, specifically in Norfolk, when you let an actual convicted terrorist not finish his jail sentence," Patel said. 

McCormick and Patel spoke to Fox News Digital at the federal courthouse in the heart of Pennsylvania's third-largest city, Allentown, on Wednesday after a roundtable focused on cracking down on fentanyl. 

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The FBI director was referring to Mohamed Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sierra Leone who entered a classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk last month and opened fire, killing one. Jalloh was convicted of supporting ISIS in 2017. 

Also in March, federal investigators said Ayman Mohamad Ghazali was radicalized by Iran-backed Hezbollah when he allegedly crashed his vehicle into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, that was filled with more than 100 children.

McCormick noted that, during the Biden administration, hundreds of people on the U.S. terror watch list crossed into the nation. 

"Many of them are loose in our country," he said. "[T]he effort of the administration to close the border, which it's done successfully, is now [to] take those violent criminals and send them home."

Under the Biden administration, White supremacy was considered a top priority terror threat. The Delaware Democrat told a Howard University audience that he strove to "single out the most dangerous threat to our homeland [that] is White supremacy."

In a September 2024 House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, said 382 people whose names appear on the terror watchlist were "stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally between ports of entry from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2024. This is compared to the 11 individuals apprehended from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2020."

The Department of Homeland Security, which is separate but related to the work of the FBI, remains hamstrung by a Democrat-enabled appropriations freeze that has left TSA and other agencies without proper resources, including paychecks.

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Patel called the department the FBI's largest law enforcement partner globally and cited crucial interagency task forces.

"Every day and every time someone [in DHS] misses a paycheck, it's yet another opportunity for the criminals to take advantage of a system that should be fixed easily," Patel said.

"And thanks to Sen. Dave McCormick and the charge he's leading, I believe DHS is going to be funded. And those that vote against funding DHS are literally voting against law enforcement, and, to me, it makes no sense."

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McCormick added that while the shutdown was already "irresponsible and disgraceful" in February, it's now exacerbated by the Iran conflict.

"It's absolute political theater on the part of Chuck Schumer," he said, calling the idea that Democrats would use DHS funding as a "political pawn" during wartime "unforgivable."

The shutdown is on its 49th day as of Friday, and more than 200,000 DHS workers are affected, according to reports.

"What's happening is Schumer keeps moving the finish line in terms of what he's trying to achieve. I think it's disgraceful," McCormick said.