When I was a young Army officer candidate, learning about leadership in a hard school, one of the things we were lectured on constantly (and feared having happen to us) was losing control of a situation. That's just, for a military leader, as losing control of a situation can result in a lot of people looking at daisies from the wrong side.

The Biden Administration has lost control — utterly lost control — of the southern border. More to the point, it is evident that they have deliberately abandoned control, and sooner or later, the American people will pay the price for that.

One possibility, at least, has been averted — for now. It's nice when things work as we expect them to for a change. In one such example, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested an illegal alien from Senegal who is wanted in that country for terrorist offenses. Not without, however, releasing him the first time into the U.S., apparently without much scrutiny.

In a press release, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says a 29-year-old "unlawfully present Mauritanian or Senegalese citizen" was arrested on Oct. 17. 

ICE says he is wanted by Senegalese authorities for criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist organization; destruction, degradation and damages in relation to a terrorist organization; direct provocation of an armed crowd and acts (or preparatory acts) aimed at compromising public safety.

But he had first been encountered on Oct. 3 -- two weeks earlier -- by Border Patrol agents at the southern border near Lukeville, Arizona. He was then processed by officials and served with a Notice to Appear in New York City and released on his own recognizance.

A week after he was released, on Oct. 10, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations agents notified Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York City that he was wanted on terrorism charges in Senegal.

ICE’s New York City Fugitive Operations team then arrested him "without incident" outside of the Federal Plaza immigration court in New York City. He is now in custody on deportation proceedings.

This Senegalese illegal alien isn't alone; my colleague Becky Noble has the news of another, a Jordanian in Houston who was caught while plotting to kill Jews:

Last month, Sohaib Abuayyash, a Jordanian national living in Houston, was arrested and now is behind bars for unlawful possession of a firearm by someone with a non-immigrant visa, but was also allegedly plotting an attack on Houston's Jewish community. Federal officials claim that Abuayyash was studying how to make bombs and had posted to social media about wanting to kill Jews. U.S. Magistrate Judge Christina Bryan wrote in court documents that Abuayyash had talked about becoming a martyr in support of a religious cause and that he "has made statements that he wants to go to Gaza to fight."

Everything worked out in the end — in these cases. But the open southern border remains a running sore, not only because of the masses of people crowding through unchecked, unscreened, and unquestioned, but also because of the known terror suspects who have been caught — and how many have not been caught? Hundreds? Thousands? My colleague Matt Funicello has some of the possible consequences of the failure of our border policy, including a likely major terror attack:

When that attack comes, the blood of those killed or wounded will be on the hands of all those who decided not to act. Biden, Mayorkas, and the rest of the administration will be the sole people responsible. Even if the attack doesn't come for years after Biden leaves office, it's his administration that has allowed the border to go unchecked and our immigration laws to be either ignored or flat-out disregarded. The worst part is that the mainstream media and the entire leftist virus that plagues this nation will deny and pass off any and all responsibility to anyone but themselves.

This much is certain: When any major terror attacks come, these are the consequences these architects of our failing border enforcement policies will face: Doodley-squat. We all know this, we all hate it, but when you look at past incidences of major policy failures, we all know that this is not only likely but probable.

Millions —millions of illegal immigrants have flooded into the United States across the southern border since President Biden took office. Millions more will no doubt enter before the Biden regime comes to an end — millions of unknown, unscreened, unquestioned, illegal aliens, coming here for unknown reasons. The failure of the federal government to secure our southern border, given the global situation at the moment, will sooner or later result in a catastrophe. The Biden administration and its officials will, yes, be directly responsible for that. And unless they are directly caught up in it, they will never face any consequences.

That is the state of the kakistocracy in Washington today. This is a primary issue that should be driving the 2024 elections.

This is still an ongoing worry.

Republicans have separately raised concerns about the number of terror watch list encounters at the southern border, which hit a record in FY23, as well as the number of "special interest aliens" being encountered -- in addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who evaded agents as "gotaways."

Concerned yet?