By Steve Neavling
Federal law enforcement is investigating after a Lebanese man apprehended at the Texas border claimed to be a member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
Border Patrol agents apprehended Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, on March 9 near El Paso, The New York Post first reported.
He told authorities in custody that he was going to the U.S. “to try to make a bomb.”
But according to ICE documents, Ebbadi later said he fled Lebanon and Hezbollah because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in, you can never get out.”
In a sworn interview, Ebbadi said he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and was an active member guarding weapons locations for an additional four years.
CBP said in a statement, “If an individual poses a potential threat to national security or public safety, we deny admission, detain, remove, or refer them to other federal agencies for further vetting, investigation and/or prosecution as appropriate.”
Federal law enforcement is now investigating the man, NBC News reports.
CBP has said it is witnessing an increase in migrants who are on the terror watch list entering the U.S. illegally.
