House Panel Weighs ISIS Threat: 'Time's of Essence'

A House Homeland Security subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday to determine the threat posed by ISIS to the United States. 

Witnesses included a number of Homeland Security Agency and customs officials, who outlined steps the government is taking to track the worldwide movement of terrorists holding U.S. and Western passports.

Some Republican lawmakers on the committee, chaired by Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., are concerned not only about the ISIS threat from airports and border crossings on highways, but also about the flood of illegal immigration, especially on the southern U.S. border.

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Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., described his recent visit to the King Ranch in Texas about 50 miles from the Mexican border. 

He said ranch security people told him that they had found people trespassing on the ranch who weren't from Mexico, but were from the Middle East.

He urged the Obama administration and Congress to deal with the border problem.

"We have no idea who's in our country," Duncan said. "For us not to recognize that we have open borders, and that we have no idea who has entered our country illegally and what their intentions were -- whether it was an intention to get a job and provide for their family or whether there was an intention to maybe create a terrorist cell and do something nefarious in the future -- we don't know."

Miller cautioned that loopholes in the nation's visa waiver program could allow "several hundred" ISIS members to reenter the country without being detected. The program allows citizens from more than 30 countries to come to the United States without a visa.

"These (ISIS) thugs have no regard for life," Miller said. "Time is of the essence."

She estimates that several hundred Americans may be fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq.