Customs and Border Patrol issued a memo on Wednesday warning agents to be on alert for illegal immigrants carrying explosives after ten improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were found near the border.
Agents were advised to “exercise extreme caution and should report any possible armed subjects approaching the border with possible explosive devices” in a memo first obtained by Fox Business.
The IEDs were discovered after agents stationed at a Tuscon border post exchanged fire with cartel members near a local ranch.
The news comes against the backdrop of ongoing immigration-policy debates in Washington D.C., where Republicans have pushed to include greater funding for border security within the White House’s broader $106 billion aid package to Israel and Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) told reporters after meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that any foreign aid bill would have to be paired with increased security measures to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border region.
“Thus far, their responses have been insufficient and not provided us the clarity and the detail that we’ve requested over and over since literally 24 hours after I was handed the gavel as speaker of the House,” Johnson told reporters.
Speaking with Zelensky, Johnson reportedly assured the beleaguered leader that he stands with Ukraine amid Russia’s “brutal invasion.”
“I’ve also made very clear from Day One, that our first condition on any national-security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first,” the newly-elected speaker added. “The border is an absolute catastrophe.”
On Thursday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) announced the Senate would return early from its holiday recess to hammer out the details of a border agreement. “That will give negotiators from the White House, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, a time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement. It will then take some time to turn that framework into text,” Schumer said.
The Tucson border sector has been hit hard by a wave of illegal immigrants in December, with the sector chief announcing earlier this month that 17,500 illegal immigrants had crossed the border in that sector in a recent week. Border Patrol agents in the sector had 55,000 encounters with illegal immigrants in October.