The Department of Justice issued a July 30 statement alleging that 31-year-old Moayad Heider Mohammad Aldairi, a Jordanian, was arrested by federal agents for conspiring to smuggle six Yemeni citizens into the U.S. over the Texas border from Mexico.

A hotbed of Al Qaeda activity, Yemen has been embroiled in a multi-sided civil war since 2015. (A report by The Associated Press report Tuesday described a situation so entangled that Saudia Arabian allies of the U.S. were actually working with Al Qaeda against other militant forces in Yemen back by Iran.)

In the DOJ statement, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said the danger this activity poses to U.S. national security is clear.

“Alien smuggling puts our national security at risk, and the Criminal Division is dedicated to enforcing our immigration laws and disrupting the flow of illegal aliens into the United States,” he said.

In the statement, Special Agent in Charge Shane M. Folden of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, San Antonio, said the arrest was an example of ICE effectiveness. – READ MORE

Border Patrol Agents Assigned To The Rio Grande Valley Sector Stopped Five Dangerous Gang Members From Successfully Moving Into The U.s. Interior. The Agents Also Stopped Two Previously Deported Child Sex Offenders.

Weslaco Station agents arrested a suspected illegal immigrant near Alamo, Texas, on Sunday, according to Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. After taking the Mexican national to the station for processing and a biometric background investigation, agents learned that the St. Peter Police Department in Missouri previously arrested him for statutory rape in the second degree. A Missouri court convicted the man and sentenced him to one year in prison.

Falfurrias Station agents located about 80 miles inland from the border, apprehended a Guatemalan man near Encino on Saturday. The area is a well-known human smuggling dropoff location where migrants are marched through dangerous conditions to circumvent the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint. After taking the Guatemalan to the station for processing, agents learned that Boston, Massachusetts, Police Department officers arrested the man in 2003 for indecent assault and battery of a child under the age of 14, officials stated.

Later that afternoon, McAllen Station agents arrested a Salvadoran man near the border town of Mission, Texas. During a background investigation, officials confirmed the Salvadoran to be a member of the hyperviolent transnational criminal MS-13 gang, according to the information from Border Patrol agents.

In total, the Rio Grande Valley Sector agents kept four MS-13 gang members, one 18th Street gang member and two sex offenders who previously victimized minors from successfully making their way back into the interior of the U.S. – READ MORE