AP Sources: 8 People With Possible Islamic State Ties Arrested in US for Immigration Violations

WASHINGTON — Eight people from Tajikistan suspected of having ties to the Islamic State have been arrested in the United States in recent days, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The arrests took place in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles and the individuals who entered the United States through the southern border are being detained for immigration violations, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak. discuss the ongoing investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The nature of their alleged ties to the Islamic State was not immediately clear, but the individuals were being tracked by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). They were in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which made the arrests while they were working with the JTTF, awaiting proceedings to remove them from the country.

The individuals from Tajikistan entered the country last spring and went through the U.S. government screening process without obtaining information that would have identified them as potentially linked to terrorism, one of the people familiar with the said. case.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a statement confirming immigration-related arrests of “several non-citizens” but did not provide details. The agencies noted that the United States was in a “heightened threat environment.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said the United States faces growing threats from domestic violent extremists as well as foreign terrorist organizations, particularly in the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7.

He told a recent congressional hearing that officials were “concerned about the terrorist implications of potentially targeting vulnerabilities at the border.” The Biden administration said in August that it had detected and stopped a network attempting to smuggle people from Uzbekistan to the United States and that at least one member of the network had ties to a foreign terrorist group.

“The FBI and DHS will continue to work around the clock with our partners to identify, investigate and thwart potential threats to national security,” the agencies said.