About 1,500 Iranians were intercepted at the border during the Biden Administration, but it\u2019s the unknown number who got through that is alarming officials \u2014 who told The Post \u201csleeper cells\u201d are a grave potential threat to the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no idea how many people got around obviously. The numbers are deeply concerning,\u201d said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who previously served as US ambassador to Japan during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n
About half of the intercepted Iranians were released into the country, Hagerty said, apparently referencing a Fox News report last year<\/a> that 1,504 Iranians were arrested at the border between 2021 and 2024, with 700 released into the country pending court cases.<\/p>\n Smoke and flames rise at the site of March 7 airstrikes on an oil depot in Tehran.\u00a0Top government officials are warning about the risks that Iranian \u201csleeper cells\u201d could try to carry out revenge attacks inside the US. Middle East Images\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n The US has long listed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. <\/p>\n The number of Iranians intercepted at the border grew to 1,650 between 2022 and 2025, according to Customs and Border Patrol data cited by the nonpartisan Niskanen Center<\/a>. Many flew through Sao Paolo, Brazil, a \u201chub\u201d for passport fraud.<\/p>\n Hagerty\u2019s comments came after the feds sent out a security alert warning of a possible effort by Iran to direct \u201cprepositioned sleeper assets,\u201d even as much of its top leadership has been wiped out through relentless US and Israeli air attacks.<\/p>\n The caution raised fears that Iran, which has continued to hammer its Gulf neighbors and whose retaliation has led to the deaths of at least 13 American service members, could find a way to strike on the home front.<\/p>\n The joint US\/Israeli strikes on Iran, including ones earlier this month which left parts of Tehran destroyed, have sparked fears of retaliatory attacks on American soil. Getty Images<\/p>\n President Trump acknowledged the concerns March 11.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border, but we know where most of them are: We\u2019ve got our eye on all of them, I think,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Homeland security concerns rose even higher when a deranged Lebanese American man slammed a car packed with explosives<\/a> into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and an ISIS-linked gunman opened fire<\/a> at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing an ROTC instructor.<\/p>\n FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe\u00a0also met with Republican senators in the Capitol this month to discuss expiring federal surveillance authority, as security fears at home intensify.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s leaders have threatened further attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, but the feds said Iran had potentially tried to contact prepositioned assets inside the US. Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know where they are,\u201d Hagerty said. \u201cPut it this way: there\u2019s a greater than 0% probability that there\u2019s a sleeper cell in America today, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who is barred from disclosing classified briefings he gets from the administration, also sounded the alarm.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me just tell you, I think that this is a moment with a lot of safety challenges and I\u2019ll leave it at that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s good reason to be vigilant,\u201d said Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), another intelligence panel member. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any question they\u2019re here,\u201d said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Homeland Security member. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be so vigilant \u2026 it just takes one person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 1,500 Iranians were intercepted at the border during the Biden Administration, but it\u2019s the unknown number who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14670,9,11,10,2721,3694,56069,58,21181,1076],"class_list":["post-178681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-iran","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-security","tag-terrorism","tag-us-border-crisis","tag-us-news","tag-war","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}