More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, lawmakers are urging the federal government to remain vigilant and continue efforts to bolster national security to prevent future terrorist attacks.
Although lawmakers largely agree the U.S. government has taken significant steps to improve its safety and attack prevention, such as the creation of the Department of Homeland Security following the 9/11 attacks, many noted the country must stay on guard as some foreign countries engage in warfare overseas.
“I think that this country has taken so many steps positive, whether it’s creating the Department of Homeland Security, the sharing of critical information and intelligence, the work that we’ve done with state and local partners in creating task forces,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) told the Washington Examiner. “There is absolutely so much work that’s been done.”
Those developments have allowed law enforcement officials to combat terrorist incidents over the last two decades, including planned attacks “the public doesn’t know about,” according to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY).
“There’s been a tremendous amount of improvement. And I think you actually see [and] have seen over the last 23 years the fruits of that,” he said.
“But,” Goldman added, “we always have to remain vigilant because, as we are seeing from Iran and Russia and China and North Korea around the world, there is a growing anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-West sentiment with some of the powerful countries around the world who would like to do harm to our way of life.”
Others pointed to the emboldening of some terrorist groups in the Middle East in recent years, warning the United States must strengthen its posture against adversarial countries in order to quell their strength. However, that posture, some Republican lawmakers argued, has been weakened under the Biden administration.
“The way … that the Biden-Harris administration has handled foreign policy — whether it’s Iran and its proxies, whether it’s Russia, whether it’s China — there is no question that our adversaries are looking at us as weak,” D’Esposito said. “That is something that we need to work at.”
Many Republicans pointed to the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as evidence of a weaker international standing for the U.S., warning the lessons taught by the 9/11 attacks may no longer be heeded.
“We learned some lessons. They were short-lived, I’m afraid, in some respects, as we think about the Afghan withdrawal,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s important that we remind ourselves that being safe at home sometimes means being present somewhere else.”
Republicans also pointed to the record-high numbers of illegal immigration at the southern border under the Biden administration as a threat to U.S. homeland security — particularly citing people with ties to terrorist groups who have been apprehended by border officials.
“Nearly a year after the devastating attacks on our ally Israel, we know illegal aliens with ties to ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah have been apprehended at the Southwest border,” Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “In fact, since taking office, President Biden and Vice President Harris’s commitment to open borders has led to more than 380 potential terrorists being caught crossing our borders.
“While 19 terrorists conducted the horrific attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, we now know 99 suspected terrorists have been released into our communities in the past three and half years — and countless more public safety threats have likely entered among the two million known gotaways on Biden and Harris’s watch,” he added. “Inadmissible aliens, who we know have not been sufficiently vetted, are allowed through TSA screening using this administration’s CBP One mass-parole scheme, potentially putting the public in danger.”
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One way to ensure the country does not make itself susceptible to future terrorism, according to D’Esposito, is to make sure children are taught about the 9/11 attacks in school to “know why we were attacked and who attacked us.”
“That is the way for us to be stronger as a nation, and it’s a way for us, I think, to really invoke that fear on our adversaries,” D’Esposito said. “When you have all generations … know who caused harm to this country, that’s important.”