Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is demanding answers from the Biden Administration after two reported illegal aliens from Jordan – one of which is reported to be on the terrorist watch list – attempted to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico with a box truck.
On May 3, the two adult men – one of whom reportedly crossed the border illegally recently and one of whom overstayed a student visa – occupied a box truck and attempted to enter Marine Corps Base Quantico posing as employees subcontracted by Amazon to deliver a package at the post office located inside the base.
When the two men did not provide approved access credentials, military police officers proceeded to direct them to a separate location for a secondary security inspection; however, the driver ignored the officers’ instructions and instead accelerated in an attempt to enter the military base.
Since the incident was reported by the local Virginia news outlet Potomac Local News, a group of 13 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Chris Wray seeking answers to eight questions regarding the incident, including the background of the individuals involved.
Bensman, who was cited in the lawmakers’ letter for his column in the New York Post about the incident, is also demanding answers, specifically when it comes to identifying the ordeal as a terrorist attack.
“What was this? The main question is, was it a terrorist motivation at play here? And if it was, that would be very significant because it would be the first known terror attack that we’ve been warning about for three years straight to come across the southern border,” Bensman said on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“I believe it was a terror attack – a thwarted terror attack. We don’t know what was in the truck. Nobody will tell us what was in the truck. That’s the second big question. But the truck itself could have been used, and often trucks like this are used in jihadist terror attacks all around the world. They use them to run people down…So I believe that it was a terror attack until someone proves me wrong,” Bensman added.
Bensman went on to say how the Biden Administration is refusing to come out and say the incident was not an attack, noting that the way the situation is being handled is “highly unusual.”
“The way that the administration is handling this is highly unusual where they won’t actually just say, ‘It was not terrorism, go away.’ If they were to just simply say that and go on the record, I would go away. I wouldn’t be writing these columns. I’m pretty sure that the congressmen that signed a demand letter for information to DHS would go away and retract their letter. This isn’t happening though, which tells me that they know it’s a terror attack, too,” Bensman said.
“The CIA, FBI, DIA…all of those agencies are in a weird lockstep where they absolutely refuse to rule out a terrorism motive. That’s all you got to do, guys. Rule it out and we all go away about our business. They’re not doing that because that would put them on the record lying. They’re not going to go on the record lying that it wasn’t a terror related attack. I challenge them to prove me wrong,” Bensman added.
In addition, Bensman also raised questions about the motive behind the apparent attack, noting how, in his experience, “a lot of Jordanians turn out to be Palestinians.”
“In my experience, a lot of Jordanians turn out to be Palestinians. I half suspect that these are people from Gaza or from the Palestinian territories who are mad about the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s retaliatory war. I don’t know where they would put them, but if they return them to the Palestinian territories, they may be heralded as heroes,” Bensman noted.
Bensman also pointed out the political implications that would follow in the case that the Biden Administration admitted the incident to be a terrorist attack.
“But to admit that would give Donald Trump a major sledgehammer for the televised debates coming up. I don’t think the former president knows about this yet but they’re hoping, I think, that it’ll just go away before he finds out,” Bensman explained.
To this, Bensman also brought light to the fact that the Biden Administration has confirmed that the two illegal aliens will be deported from the country instead of being prosecuted as terrorists or prosecuted for trespassing.
“The administration did tell us that they were going to be removed, deported – not prosecuted as terrorists or prosecuted for trespassing or really anything. They just want to get rid of them, get them out of the country,” Bensman said.
“It looks like they just want to deport these guys and not put them through anything that might reveal anything more about this incident. They are probably in an ICE detention center, but who knows? The last we heard they were being held by ICE in a detention center which would comport with a deportation proceeding,” Bensman added.
When it comes to preventing more incidents similar to the one in Virginia from taking place, Bensman said information must be released to “fix the problem.”
“The real issue is that if they’re not going to admit that this happened, then we can’t fix the problem. We don’t have a way to demand that the problem at the border be fixed, that counter terrorism programs be restored down there, and that we can reduce the elevated risk of more things like this happening,” Bensman said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
