Islamic militants purchase a nuclear device from a sympathetic official in Pakistan and ship the weapon on a drug trafficking route through West Africa to South America. Next, the package is smuggled north to the United States-Mexico border. Although this sounds like the plot line of a spy thriller, it is a scenario laid out in an online magazine produced by the Islamic State, the apocalyptic Syria-based terror group also known as ISIS, the Christian Science Monitor reports. “From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and … presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million ‘illegal’ aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car,” the 2015 ISIS article says.
The debate over security along the U.S.-Mexico border isn’t just about the millions of unauthorized migrants who have crossed the international boundary seeking work and better lives. It isn’t just about the drug smugglers and assorted other criminals who routinely use the border as an easy back door into the U.S. Conservatives have long warned that terror groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda might try to exploit drug and migrant smuggling routes from Mexico to sneak into the US undetected. From November 2013 to July 2014, officials apprehended 143 individuals listed on the U.S. terror watch list trying to cross the Mexico border and enter the U.S. illegally, said a confidential Texas Department of Public Safety report obtained by the Houston Chronicle. Donald Trump made border security a cornerstone of his campaign for the White House. He says securing the border will be one of his first and highest priorities, including fulfilling his pledge to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.