Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, that terrorists hoping to carry out such an attack know to come through the United States's southern border because President Joe Biden's administration will allow them to travel freely.
"If you're the next planner of 9/11, it's obvious where you go — you go to Mexico," the Texas Republican said in a new episode of his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
DESANTIS POINTS TO RENEWED TERRORISM THREAT ON SOUTHERN BORDER ON 9/11 ANNIVERSARY
"And you come right across. And Joe Biden and the idiots in his administration will fly you to wherever you want to go in this country, and you can carry out your terror attack," he claimed.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon left 2,977 people dead, making it the largest loss of life ever on American soil from a foreign attack.
"Sadly, every day that we have an open border under Joe Biden and the Democrats, the odds of another major attack in this country, a major terror attack, go up systematically," Cruz said. "They are exposing us."
The senator claimed that the border security policies of the Biden administration serve as "an invitation" for terrorism. "Every month, people are coming across who are on the terror watch list. The numbers dwarf the number of known terrorists who would come in prior to Joe Biden," he said.
Per U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 149 immigrants on the terrorist watch list have been encountered by Border Patrol in 2023 so far. This number is larger than the last six years' totals combined.
"They are exposing vulnerabilities whether it is someone trying to hijack an airplane or whether it is a suicide bomber in a mall or an amusement park or a concert or what have you," Cruz reiterated. "We are vulnerable to global terrorism because this administration has thrown open the border and will not protect us."
Terrorism isn't the only thing that the southern border's relative insecurity invites, he said, adding that it's "an invitation for people to die and for cartels to brutalize children and to sexually assault women. And they're an invitation to flood this country with narcotics and fentanyl that's murdering over 100,000 people, and they're an invitation for Mexican drug lords to become multibillionaires globally."
In an interview published Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) agreed with Cruz's assessment. According to the 2024 GOP presidential candidate, the border policies and subsequent mass migration have "made us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"I think that there is a good bet that somebody that's come across that [southern] border will commit an act of terrorism," he said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also sounded off on border security on Monday, telling states to consider seceding from the union due to Biden's inaction on securing the border.