Fears of sleeper cells prompt over 100 Iranian arrests by ICE

Daily Mail​

27-06-2025

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 130 Iranian nationals over the past week, as the escalation between Israel and Iran has led to fears from the Trump administration of sleeper cells. President Donald Trump has even warned there could be Iranian terrorist sleeper cells plotting against Americans, as a failing of his predecessor Joe Biden, whom he said 'let in a lot' from Iran specifically.
ICE now has 670 Iran nationals in detention as Washington worries about potential retaliation for Trump's strikes on nuclear facilities in Tehran. One of the men in ICE custody served the Iranian military as a sniper in the past four years. The arrests come as it's been revealed at least 1,500 Iranians entered the US during the Biden years.
Of the 1,504 who were apprehended by immigration officials, 729 were allowed to stay in America by the Democrat administration. Fox News reported that the many of the detainees have a criminal record including domestic violence, as well as drug and weapon offenses. The Trump administration claims its yet another indictment of the failed Biden border policy. 'I think one thing that's really concerning about that: One, they weren't doing any really meaningful vetting in the last administration,' former acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey told Fox.
'The second part of it is, you know, we have probably 2 million known gotaways come through the last administration, and the people that went through the non-ports of entry, we knew they went through but nobody caught them, so we have no idea who went through,' he continued. 'Gotaways' are illegal immigrants who Border Patrol agents know crossed the border but were unable to apprehend. Since they were not stopped, there is no way of knowing where they're from or where they went. Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan called it 'the biggest national security vulnerability we've ever seen.'
Fears of terrorist sleeper cells attacking citizens in the US is not unfounded, Homan explained, based on what was found at the border. 'Do we know where everyone of the two million (gotaways) are, no. We don't know who they all are, why they're here or where they came from,' he stated. 'Border Patrol intelligence in the last four years they found prayer mats at the border. They found identification of people from Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Syria. So we know that some terrorists have crossed that border. We'd be a fool to think zero crossed.'
At least half of them were allowed to stay in the US, despite citizens of Iran being considered special interest aliens due to the possibility of being security threats. The apprehensions have taken place since Sunday in sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation, amid growing warnings about potential terrorist 'sleeper cells' targeting the US. Major US cities are on high alert, after security officials warned there could be attacks on banking systems, energy grids and cyber attacks.
Data obtained by the conservative-leaning outlet shows an upward trend of allowing the Middle Easterners in, with 48 stopped at the border in 2021, 197 detained in 2022 462 in 2023 and 797 the last year Biden was in office. The numbers include Iranians who entered the country through the southern and northern borders and were encountered by the US Border Patrol. More than 10 million people from around the world poured into America while former President Joe Biden was in power.
However, the true number of Iranians now in the States could be much higher, as at least 2 million so called 'gotaways' came across the border during the Biden administration . The presence of Iranians in the US is under scrutiny as Iranian officials have promised to retaliate against the U.S. Rhetoric out of the Middle East has escalated with a popular TV personality threatening that up to 50,000 American soldiers will be returned to Washington in coffins.