he FBI is investigating more than a dozen Uzbek nationals allowed into the US after they sought asylum at the southern border with Mexico earlier this year, a scramble set off when US intelligence officials found that the migrants traveled with the help of a smuggler with ties to ISIS, according to multiple US officials.

While the FBI says no specific ISIS plot has been identified, officials are still working to “identify and assess” all of the individuals who gained entry to the United States, according to a statement from National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson. And they are closely scrutinizing a number of the migrants as possible criminal threats, according to two US officials.

Though there is no evidence at this point to justify detaining anyone, the episode was so alarming that an urgent classified intelligence report was circulated to President Joe Biden’s top Cabinet officials in their morning briefing book. For some counterterrorism officials, it shows that the US is deeply vulnerable to the possibility that terrorists could sneak across the southern border by hiding amid the surge of migrants entering the country in search of asylum.

[This is exactly what border-security advocates have warned about since 9/11. In fact, the 9/11 Commission warned about the risks on both borders for infiltration by terrorist groups. It’s why Congress authorized the border wall in 2006, even if they didn’t get around to funding it. Now we have identified a poll of potential terror suspects that is almost as large as the 9/11 attack group 22 years ago. — Ed]