Federal immigration authorities caught and released a Pakistani man who illegally crossed America’s southern border and whose name appeared on the nation’s terror watchlist, according to a memo from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Pakistani national entered the U.S. illegally Nov. 9 and was nabbed by the Border Patrol the next day in Tecate, California, according to the memo, which was received from two different sources in the Department of Homeland Security, parent agency to both ICE and the Border Patrol.
While the Pakistani was in Border Patrol custody Nov. 22, the Terrorism Screening Center confirmed that he was a positive match on the terror watchlist, according to the memo.
Despite this, the memo says, the terror suspect was released Jan. 23 from the custody of ICE’s San Diego office after the agency served him with an Order of Release on Recognizance with tracking technology through a program called Alternatives to Detention.
Border agents served the Pakistani with an expedited removal order Nov. 11, after which he said that he had a credible fear of going back to Pakistan, according to the memo.
On Jan. 24, however, the ICE office in San Diego informed the agency’s office in Los Angeles of the man’s presence on the terror watchlist, along with his “mandatory detention requirement,” and had him report on his own to the Alternatives to Detention check-in office. ICE in Los Angeles was able to arrest him when he showed up for the check-in.
