Congressional Americans watched jaw‑dropping testimony on Dec. 11, 2025, when National Counterterrorism Center Director Joseph Kent told the House Homeland Security Committee that roughly 18,000 known or suspected terrorists were identified as having been admitted to the United States during the Biden years. That figure is not political puffery — it came from the nation’s top counterterrorism official, and it should set off alarm bells in every community from Main Street to the halls of Congress.
Kent did not stop at a single number; he also said the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan placed 88,000 Afghan evacuees into the country, and authorities have already flagged about 2,000 of those evacuees for ties to terrorist organizations. The same testimony tied sloppy, battlefield-style vetting to a brutal Thanksgiving‑Eve ambush in Washington, D.C., proving this is not an abstract statistic but a direct threat to American lives.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rightly called the D.C. shooting what it was: a terrorist attack, not an “unfortunate accident.” Noem used the hearing to press for aggressive fixes — including tougher travel restrictions and an overhaul of vetting — even as anti‑enforcement protesters briefly disrupted the proceedings, underscoring the political chaos that helped create this vulnerability.
What was almost equally revealing was the casualness from some Democrats who seemed eager to downplay the danger; Rep. Bennie Thompson referred to the murder of a National Guardswoman as an “unfortunate accident,” prompting a justified rebuke from Noem and outrage from Republicans. This kind of shrug from the other side of the aisle reads like political cowardice — a willingness to minimize terror threats rather than defend the American people.
Patriots should be furious but focused: facts matter. The NCTC’s numbers demand real accountability for the years when border policy and resettlement programs were treated like open invitations rather than national security matters, and any official who presided over that failure must answer for the risk they created.
Congress and the American people must insist on tougher vetting, meaningful travel bans where necessary, and immediate reforms to prevent known and suspected terrorists from slipping into our communities again. This is not about partisan scorekeeping — it is about protecting our children, our servicemembers, and the rule of law; if our leaders won’t secure the homeland, voters will.
