(NewsNation) — A 22-year-old Lebanese migrant apprehended for crossing the border illegally near El Paso, Texas, on March 9 claimed to be a former Hezbollah member involved in a bomb plot targeting New York, NewsNation confirmed with Customs and Border Protection sources.
Basel Basell Ebbadi told federal officials after being taken into custody that he was trained by the Iran-backed terror group for seven years and served four more as an armed guard at weapons locations, according to the New York Post, which first reported the story.
Ebbadi, who used a fake name and birthday in several countries before reaching the U.S., said he planned to make a bomb after arriving, the Post reported, citing a sworn interview.
The Lebanese man is now marked for deportation, The Post reported.
This comes as migrant encounters in the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol have increased in the past two weeks, but remain comparable to last December, federal officials say.
Border agents here have come across an average of 1,100 migrants a day – a mix of asylum-seekers trying to surrender at the border wall and groups of unauthorized foreign nationals trying to evade arrest – in the past two weeks.
That compares to a daily average of 860 encounters in February, 740 in January and more than 1,100 in December, according to Border Patrol data. On Friday, the City of El Paso’s online migrant dashboard showed 1,135 encounters for the previous day. On Dec. 19, for instance, that number was much higher, standing at 1,489 daily apprehensions and surrenders.
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Author: Jorge Ventura
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