What do we know about a smuggling network affiliated with the Islamic State group?

Although the person suspected of ramming a pickup truck into a New Orleans crowd on New Year's Day, killing 14 people, was born and raised in the U.S., Republican politicians have sought to tie the attack to U.S. border security. 

Talking with anchor Jake Tapper on Jan. 5 on CNN’s "State of the Union," Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said there are still a lot of unknowns about the New Orleans attack. 

Banks: "What we do know, at least in the New Orleans attack, I mean, this was a terrorist attack. An ISIS sympathizer carried out a plan that was premeditated and killed American people. A terrorist attack on American soil, we have to take it seriously. We don't know all the facts yet.

"But we have got to get down to the reality of the matter that we have had 400 ISIS-smuggled people coming into our country that the Department of Homeland Security told us about last summer. And 50 of them, we don't know where they are. We don't know who they are or where they are. And we have to take that more seriously. I know President Trump will do that."

Tapper: "Obviously, the terrorist threat is multifaceted. But this individual, by all indications, was an American citizen, was homegrown.

"You said on Twitter that Trump was right when he immediately talked about this being an indication of how the border needs to be shut down. It's — obviously, there shouldn't be terrorists crossing the border, but the — wasn't that premature, given the fact that this was an American citizen, this particular case was not related to the border?"

Banks: "Well, remember, you have to go back to Obama called ISIS the JV team of terrorism. And, obviously, they're not."

Following a few more remarks about Trump and the Islamic State group, Banks continued, "And now we have — we know that ISIS individuals are being smuggled over a wide-open border." 

Banks’ office did not respond to our query about what information he was citing. But he was likely referring to an NBC News report that relied on information from unnamed sources. According to NBC News, government officials said the Department of Homeland Security had identified 400 immigrants who entered the U.S. through a smuggling network tied to the Islamic State group. 

However, there are no reports that the immigrants themselves are members of or affiliated with the group once known as ISIS. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI did not respond to PolitiFact’s requests for comment.

Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said people are "rightly concerned" about chaos at the border, including historically high illegal immigration under Biden’s presidency. But he said immigration and terrorism are being incorrectly conflated with the New Orleans attack. 

"The annual chance is about one in 4.6 million per year that an American will be killed in a terrorist attack on US soil committed by a foreign born terrorist," Nowrasteh said, citing his research. 

In September 2023, Nowrasteh testified to Congress that his analysis of terrorist attacks in the U.S. from 1975 to 2022 showed that none of the people involved had crossed the southern border illegally.

Reporting about the Islamic State group smuggling ring

The details Banks cited match those in a June 25, 2024, NBC News report, which quoted three unnamed officials, who said the Department of Homeland Security had identified 400 Central Asia immigrants as "subjects of concern" because they were brought into the U.S. via a human smuggling network affiliated with the Islamic State group, NBC reported.

Of those, 150 were arrested and the whereabouts of 50 remained unknown.

Many of the 400 people, who entered the country in the past three years, crossed the U.S. Southern border and were released to seek asylum because they were not on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist.

According to NBC, people affiliated with the Islamic State group worked as human smugglers in Central Asia. However, it was unclear "whether the human smuggling activity directly funds ISIS activity or whether ISIS members are making personal money through human smuggling on the side."

In August 2023, almost a year before NBC’s report, CNN reported, citing unnamed officials, that the FBI was investigating dozens of migrants who crossed the U.S.’ southern border with help from a smuggler with ties to the Islamic State group. 

"The ISIS-linked smuggler is not believed to be a member of the terror group, but more like an independent contractor who has personal sympathies with the organization, according to U.S. officials," CNN wrote.

On June 26, 2024, following the NBC report, CNN reported that an unnamed official said the network responsible for smuggling the 400 migrants had ties to the network that brought in the dozens of migrants being investigated in August 2023.

During a March 2024 congressional hearing, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s pick for secretary of state, asked FBI director Christopher Wray about the smuggling organization. 

"There is a particular network where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about, and that we’ve been spending an enormous amount of effort with our partners to investigate," Wray said. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a June 26, 2024, interview that there was no evidence that any of the 400 people "are individuals plotting to harm the United States."

During a press conference the same day, a reporter said: "DHS confirmed that at least 400 migrants with potential ties to the Islamic State group recently crossed into the United States."

Mayorkas disagreed. 

"That reporting is incorrect. We do not have identified 400 people with potential ISIS ties," Mayorkas said. "And let me again assure you that individuals who are identified to have those ties pose a concern to us from a public safety and security perspective and they would be priorities for detention and removal."

The Department of Homeland Security has made no further public statements about the 400 people or the smuggling group and it did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.