Homeland Security Denies ISIS Attack From Mexico Imminent

Warnings by conservative groups and Republican lawmakers that the Islamic State (ISIS) plans to launch a terrorist attack on U.S. soil from Mexico are groundless, according to the Department of Homeland Security, The New York Times reported.

"There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by [ISIS] to attempt to cross the southern border," an agency statement said.

In testimony before the DHS Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Francis Taylor said, "At present, DHS is unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland" from ISIS, The Huffington Post reported.

In response to a question by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, Taylor acknowledged, "There have been Twitter, social media exchanges among [ISIS] adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility," the New York Daily News reported.

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Reports that authorities expect ISIS to set off car bombs in the United States or that military bases in the border vicinity are on high alert are baseless, The Times reported. According to the newspaper, Fox News has also been playing up the threat of an ISIS infiltration along the southern border.

Democrats charge that opponents of President Barack Obama's immigration policies are exploiting worries about terrorism from Mexico as part of their strategy to pressure the administration to better secure the border against illegal migrants.

Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke said, "There's a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border."

He added, "Before it was Iran and al-Qaida. Now it's ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is," The Times reported.

Any terror threat is more likely to come, say counterterrorism authorities, from U.S. or European militants returning from the Middle East who enter the country by commercial jetliner, The Times reported.

Judicial Watch, a conservative group, stood by its August report quoted in The Times that a threat from Mexico was looming: "High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued."

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The report continued, "Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat."

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told The Times that the administration should "acknowledge this dire threat on the border" even if it ran counter to its immigration policies.

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