Hundreds of migrants from ISIS hotbed country have crossed US border under Biden

The number of migrants flocking to the US-Mexico border from a country known as a hotbed of ISIS recruitment has skyrocketed under President Biden.

More than 1,500 migrants from Tajikistan are known to have crossed the border between October 2020 and May 2024, according to leaked border data obtained by The Post.

At least 500 Tajiks have been caught so far this year.

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Over the previous 14 years there were just 26 Tajik nationals crossing the border.

It’s unknown how many of the Tajik migrants were released into the US, but the vast majority of migrants caught at the border claim asylum and are allowed to stay while they await a court hearing.

The small Central Asian country, which borders both China and Afghanistan, has become a major source of terrorists for ISIS and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), an extreme offshoot of the Islamic State militant group.

Javed Ali, a former counterterrorism official who now teaches at the University of Michigan, said the surge of Tajik nationals could include ISIS “seeding people into the United States” to prepare for a possible attack.

The Post recently reported on ICE arresting eight Tajik migrants with suspected ties to ISIS who crossed the southern border then settled in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

The threat of ISIS and its offshoots is self-evident.

ISIS-K was responsible for a massive attack on a concert hall in Moscow — carried out by citizens of Tajikistan — that killed 145 people and wounded hundreds more on March 22.

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Experts say that ISIS and its affiliates have been preying upon Tajiks to carry out attacks abroad.

“Tajiks have been recruited to and played a key role in terrorist organizations like Islamic State to a greater degree than many neighboring countries in recent years. They have become key to [ISIS-K]’s externally-focused campaign as it seeks to gain attention and more recruits,” said Texas A&M University professor Edward Lemon, who studies Central Asia.

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“Heavy-handed counter-extremism policies” by the government of Muslim-majority Tajikistan may be radicalizing some of the country’s 10 million people and “causing the very terrorism they seek to address,” Lemon said.

Lemon, whose research has focused on Tajikistan and Central Asia, said large populations of Tajiks live outside of Tajikistan. When they choose to come to the US, they are utilizing “networks of traffickers” who “actively advertise the opportunity to come to America in Tajikistan.”

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“Tajikistan is one of the most migration dependent countries in the world, with over a million of the country’s 10 million people living in Russia. As life in Russia has become more difficult since the invasion of Ukraine, they have sought other destinations such as Europe, the Gulf and US,” Lemon said.

“Most come here, like so many others, to seek a better life,”

FBI Director Chris Wray has recently warned that the US is in a heightened threat environment for terrorism, citing both the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel carried out by Hamas and the attack in Moscow.

Last Friday, the Biden administration sanctioned four people based in Central Asia and Turkey who are allegedly involved in an ISIS-tied smuggling operation helping migrants reach the US.

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One of the sanctioned men is commander of the ISIS-Georgia Province, Adam Khamirzaev, who “provided guidance to this network on a range of activities supporting ISIS and was aware of its efforts to facilitate travelers to the United States.”

ISIS and its affiliates are keen on recruiting and inspiring attacks globally, having their sights set on Tajiks.

“One of the things that they’ve actively and deliberately done is try to expand their recruits geographically. So not only Afghans and Pakistanis, but they want to bring in a big central Asian component,” Colin Clarke, Director of Research at The Soufan Group, said.

“Moreover, they want to reach out to the diaspora, so central Asians living in Europe, living in North America, in the attempt to radicalize them, because for ISIS K, it’s low hanging fruit,”