9/10/20
WASHINGTON — A new whistleblower complaint alleges that in late 2018 and early 2019 former senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security sought to inflate the publicly reported number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border, in a move to increase support for a border wall. In early 2019, a DHS spokeswoman pushed NBC News to retract an article based on accurate figures the agency had disclosed in a document to Congress in the months prior that were far lower than the nearly 4,000 in a year the administration had been citing publicly. The January 2019 NBC News article reported that, contrary to those public statements by Trump administration officials, only six immigrants who were known or suspected terrorists had been encountered at the southern border in the first half of fiscal year 2018. At the time, administration officials were repeating the 4,000 figure in an effort to justify the government shutdown over Trump's border wall, and the lower, more accurate figure undercut their argument. That 2019 NBC News article was based on non-publicized figures provided by Customs and Border Protection to Congress in May 2018.
Before publication, then-DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman told NBC News that publishing the figures would put border agents in harm's way. At the time, NBC News consulted former DHS officials who were adamant this was not the case. Waldman is now press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence and is married to White House adviser Stephen Miller, known as the architect of the administration's anti-immigration policies. After publication, Waldman told NBC News that the figures provided to Congress and reported by NBC News were inaccurate and pushed for a full retraction, saying that otherwise she would put out a statement from DHS discrediting the article. Waldman said DHS had different, correct figures, but the agency had no plans to provide them to Congress. NBC News did not retract the article, and DHS never published a statement discrediting it. According to Congressional sources, CBP never revised the figures. Waldman, now Miller, declined to provide an on-the-record comment to NBC News for this article about her handling of the 2019 NBC News report. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
