ICE arrests more than 100 Iranian nationals as Washington warns sleeper cells could retaliate for US strikes
Up to 130 Iranian nationals have been arrested by immigration officials over the last week amid fears from the Trump administration that its strikes on Iran could spark sleeper cell revenge attacks on its own soil.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials now have 670 Iran nationals in detention.
it comes as senior figures in US Presidential Donald Trump's administration warn Iranian terrorist sleeper cells could be plotting retaliation against America after it struck three nuclear sites with bunker buster bombs last week.
Sleeper cells are foreign agents who keep a low profile until called on to carry out a mission or terror attack.
Trump was allegedly sent a comminque in the days before the US strikes on Iran threatening sleeper-cell terrorist attacks inside the US, according to NBC News.
The US has accused Iranian individuals of plots to assassinate Trump, his former national security adviser John Bolton and ex-Secretary or State Mike Pompeo.
Read more: Senator accuses Trump of ‘deliberately misleading’ public on Iran strikes
Earlier this week, federal agents arrested 11 Iranian foreign nationals in the space of 48 hours as part of targeted operations across eight states and nine US cities.
ICE officials claimed one arrested Iranian, Makari Saheli, is a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
They claimed he "admitted connections to Hezbollah," a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK and US.
Five of those arrested had previous criminal convictions including grand larceny, drug convictions and firearm possessions.
A memo sent Saturday from Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said that “thousands of Iranian nationals have been documented entering the United States illegally and countless more were likely in the known and unknown got-a-ways.”
“Though we have not received any specific credible threats to share with you all currently, the threat of sleeper cells or sympathizers acting on their own, or at the behest of Iran has never been higher,” the memo seen by NewsNation said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-La.) was questioned on whether Iran had sleeper cells in the US.
He replied: “We have thus far arrested 1,500 illegal Iranians in our country.
“That is something that I would like to talk about in a classified setting.”
Of the 1,504 who arrested by ICE, 729 were allegedly allowed to stay in America during Joe Biden's presidency.
Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan described this as 'the biggest national security vulnerability we've ever seen.'
"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 warned.
"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."
Trump has blamed Biden for letting a "lot of super cells in".
“He let a lot of super cells in, many from Iran. But hopefully we’ll take care of them,” he told reporters while en route to the Nato summit.
Dozens of former security and defence officials have warned that Trump's warning about sleeper cells is not unfounded.
Former Army General Wesley Clark told MSNBC Iranian sleeper cells could “self-activate” in response to the US strikes on Iran.
However, he said it was more likely Iran-backed proxies would launch an attack on US troops in the Middle East.
Thomas Warrick, a former State Department official, told The Telegraph: “Iran has what I call a peculiar sense of symmetry.
“I would worry, if I were at DHS, about US nuclear plants and facilities because Iran could carry out some kind of operation against them.
"And there are many examples of where Iran has tried to hire criminal gangs to carry out assassinations and similar acts. They could try to do that again. The reality is, Iran isn’t finished yet.”
Meanwhile on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an alert about cyber attacks by regime-backed hackers.