Even before Saturday night's announcement from President Donald Trump about strikes on Iran, news outlets were posting about Iranian sleeper cells in America.
A sleeper cell is a grouping of sleeper agents. They lie dormant until receiving orders or when world events determine their activation. A real world scenario happened on 9-11-2001 when terrorists attacked our nation changing our lives forever.
Let's look at some Iranian activity as reported by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website recently and during the Biden Administration.
On June 11 in Tulsa, Okla., Behkam Bahadorani, 64, a citizen of Iran, was arrested in a joint operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement Removal Operations.
His criminal history? Multiple convictions of child sex abuse, lewd molestation, rape in the second degree, and lewd proposals to a minor, according to an ICE news release.
“This criminal alien and registered sex offender, represents the worst of the worst, clearly reflective of those that have no place in our communities,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Dallas acting Field Office Director Josh Johnson said in the news release.
Bahadorani has a final order of removal and is currently in ICE custody pending removal.
In April, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's investigation "resulted in a civil forfeiture complaint alleging that $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly one million barrels of Iranian petroleum is forfeitable as property of, or affording a person a source of influence over, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its Qods Force, designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations," according to a news release.
That release continued: "Through the work of HSI’s Counterproliferation Investigations group, alongside the FBI, the U.S. government has seized $47 million worth of funds allegedly meant for terrorist groups intent on causing catastrophic harm," said ICE HSI New York acting Special Agent in Charge Alfonso. "The expertise of HSI personnel, coupled with federal law enforcement’s whole-of-government approach, ensures the wellbeing of the United States and our innocent foreign counterparts, alike. We are relentlessly utilizing every tool at our disposal in pursuit of any and all security threats.”
ICE HSI New York and FBI Minneapolis Field Office investigated the case.
In this complex investigation, which you can read here, began during the Biden Administration, "as alleged, profits from petroleum product sales support the IRGC’s full range of malign activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and both domestic and international human rights abuses."
Various federal agencies have long focused on Iranian activities in the United States.
In February 2024, En-Wei Eric Chang pled guilty to "a federal conspiracy related to exporting defense materials to Iran. Such materials are embargoed under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations," an ICE news release stated.
For 20 years, Chang, a 48-year-old citizen of the United States and the Republic of Taiwan, was a fugitive from justice in the United States.
In 2002 and 2003 – George W. Bush was president then – Chang conspired with a man named David Chu to ship items on the "Munitions List to Iran without obtaining proper licensing."
Read more about this complex, years-long case here.
In October 2023, "more than 1 million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran last year have been transferred to Ukraine following an investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C., the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) of the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Justice (DOJ)," according to a news release.
But the seized ammunition went to help Ukraine.
"With this weapons transfer, the Justice Department's forfeiture actions against one authoritarian regime are now directly supporting the Ukrainian people's fight against another authoritarian regime,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “We will continue to use every legal authority at our disposal to support Ukraine in their fight for freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”
The release stated, "The investigation details a sophisticated scheme by the IRGC to clandestinely ship weapons and munitions to entities contrary to U.S. interests."
In April 2017, during Trump's first term, Lim Yong Nam, aka Steven Lim, 43, a Singapore citizen, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy that "caused thousands of radio frequency modules to be illegally exported from the U.S. to Iran, at least 14 of which were later found in unexploded improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq."
U.S. Southern Border
According to the Middle East Forum, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered approximately 1,740 Iranian nationals at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In that same article, the author, Gil Guirra, notes this number – 1,740 – is an "exponential increase from the 90 Iranian nationals encountered at U.S. land borders from 2000 to 2019."
How did these Iranians even get to the Mexican border?
"The most troubling aspect of illegal Iranian migration is the continued existence of sophisticated Iranian passport forgery rings," Guirra wrote.
He pointed out that often these passports are sought under the guise of asylum.
These 1,740 people are just the ones border patrol encountered. How many more Iranians have slipped into the United States?
The article points out Central and South America nations have tightened their security over the months to prevent Iranians from flying into their countries and then working their way into the United States.
A 2024 article published by Federation For American Immigration Reform echoes similar fears that Iran has been creating a terror network for infiltration in the United States.
A Homeland Security Committee report from October 2024 states that "since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide, including more than 8.72 million at the Southwest border."
Note these were not only Iranians, but all nationalities. The same report noted "385 illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist have been apprehended between ports of entry at the Southwest border since FY2021."
2015
In a March 18, 2015, hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and Subcommittee on the Middle East and North, Committee on Foreign Affairs, the focus was Iran and Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere.
Former South Carolina U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican, led the meeting. He noted several key events concerning Iran. At that time Iran was still building an "illicit" nuclear weapons program with little concern about peace negotiations.
Duncan said, "Iran and Hezbollah have already demonstrated a willingness to conduct terrorist attacks in the Western Hemisphere.
Consider the recent foiled plot by a Hezbollah operative in Peru in October 2014 and the attempted attack linked to an Iranian diplomat in Uruguay last month. Or recall the 2011 attempted assassination of the Saudi Ambassador to the United
States in Washington DC and the foiled Iranian plot in 2007 to
blow up the John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York."
Duncan pointed out that those events follow Iran's 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, AMIA, in Buenos Aires.
Now
Many security experts have weighed in concerning the risk within the United States for retaliation attacks.
Watch Jonathan Schanzer, former US Treasury official and leading terror finance analysis, discuss the possibility last week.
In 2020, Dr. Shannon Nash, Manager and Trent Postdoctoral Fellow of the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network, wrote an assessment about Iranian sleeper cells in America. He quoted several experts in his report – all with chilling warnings.
Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer warned if an Iranian sleeper cell hit America, it would be “a new 9/11.”
Former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell warned "that Iran might turn their proxies loose to go after civilians and conduct a terrorist strike to kill a senior American official in any city where Iran has sleeper cells. Such action would most likely be in Iraq, but he warned that major U.S. cities could also be a target."
Many governors – Republicans and Democrats – announced Saturday night they were stepping up security in their states. So far, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose father is the ambassador to Israel, has not.
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