Border security

Terror and the Mexico border: How big a threat?

Islamic militants purchase a nuclear device from a sympathetic official in Pakistan and ship the weapon on the flip side of a drug trafficking route through West Africa to South America. Next, the package is smuggled north to the United States-Mexico border.

Although this sounds like the plot line of a spy thriller, it is a scenario laid out in an online magazine produced by the Islamic State, the apocalyptic Syria-based terror group also known as ISIS.

“From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and … presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million ‘illegal’ aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car,” the 2015 ISIS article says.


The debate over security along the US-Mexico border isn’t just about the millions of unauthorized migrants who have crossed the international boundary seeking work and better lives. And it isn’t just about the drug smugglers and assorted other criminals who routinely use the border as an easy back door into America.

There is potentially a greater threat from a porous southern border.