The Arizona Republic

The U.S. Border Patrol has yet to discover a known terrorist among the thousands of illegal immigrants streaming into Arizona from Mexico each week.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also have failed to detect a single al-Qaeda operative who infiltrated the United States through its southern border.

Counterterrorism experts insist the threat is real. But is al-Qaeda really knocking on our back door?

That question was raised last week when U.S. news outlets trumpeted FBI alerts about one of Osama bin Laden's suspected lieutenants, Adnan El Shukrijumah.

The bulletin was based on information that Shukrijumah was seen in Honduras months ago and might travel through Mexico on a U.S. terrorist mission.

FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovits said the sighting was never confirmed and there is no evidence Shukrijumah had any such plan.

In fact, the intelligence picture is fuzzy all over. No one knows if any terrorists have slipped in from Mexico undetected. Nor can anyone predict whether they will.

"I'm concerned about the Mexican border," said Col. Norm Beasley, who oversees counterterrorism efforts with the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

"But from a pure terrorism issue, I'm more concerned about the Canadian border."

The lightly patrolled northern line has been terrorist-free since 1999, when a U.S. Customs agent stopped Algerian immigrant Ahmed Ressam as he tried to enter Washington state with a carload of explosives. (Ressam, serving a 27-year sentence, admitted al-Qaeda ties in his planned attack on Los Angeles International Airport.)

The consensus among law officials seems to be that al-Qaeda has found safer, easier routes into the United States, using forged documents or valid visas.

"These people are meticulous," Beasley said. "They do not like leaving anything to chance. ... And there is a tremendous effort at the federal level to really watch for those (illegal immigrants) who are non-Hispanic."

Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said every captured immigrant is questioned at length.

The Tucson sector's 2,100 agents are trained to spot non-Mexicans, and those who fall under suspicion are turned over to the FBI for questioning.

"When you talk terrorists, I think the smuggler realizes there are no boundaries," Adame said. "Sitting in Mexico, he's still not safe."

Still, a Border Patrol report on "other-than-Mexican" immigrants detained from October 2003 to July 2004 shows a trickle of illegal immigrants from nations with known populations of Islamic terrorists: five from Iraq, 19 from Pakistan, six from Saudi Arabia.

Critics say al-Qaeda insurgents could be among them. However, a review of media reports on the LexisNexis database shows only a few terrorist-related arrests with Mexican implications.

The issue is particularly hot with conservative groups seeking to close the door on Hispanic immigration.

Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders, which sets up water stations for illegal immigrants, has a different view. "I think it's election-year politics. All we hear is rumor, hearsay. Fear does sell," she said.