(DailyChive.com) – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested an alleged ISIS member in Baltimore who had been living in the United States for two years.
The detained individual, Jovokhir Attoev, is an Uzbekistan national and was seeking asylum in the US.
When Attoev illegally entered the US from the Southern border back in February 2022, border officials detained him. However, he was later released with a court date as he was not perceived as a security threat.
In May 2023, the Uzbek government issued an international notice stating that Attoev had alleged ties to ISIS and was wanted in Uzbekistan. Still, the US authorities failed to discover that Attoev was living in America. When his asylum application was being processed in March 2024, only then did the US authorities find the notice of the Uzbek government. He was eventually arrested on April 17 and is currently detained in Pennsylvania. His trial will begin in New Jersey where the government would seek an extension in his jail term to find his ties with the group that has been involved in terrorist attacks all over the world.
According to law enforcement officials, this case suggests the deteriorated immigration system of the United States that does not allow the authorities to quickly detain the troubling individuals once they have entered the country illegally.
Recently, ICE arrested another individual with an alleged connection with a US-designated terrorist group, Hezb-e-Islami. This group was involved in the murders of numerous American soldiers in Afghanistan.
According to the former assistant secretary of the DHS, Elizabeth Neumann, Congress should immediately pass a bipartisan border bill to increase counterterrorism efforts at the Southern border. Neumann noted that the US decreased its efforts against ISIS after the destruction of the terror group in the Middle East, but the aftermath of the Afghanistan war has led to the emergence of more factions of the terror group that are continuously posing security threats for the Western world.
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