As of late Sunday, at least three U.S. military members will be coming home in caskets — among the first casualties of the Trump administration’s “regime change” campaign in Iran. There will “likely be more” to come in the days ahead, President Donald Trump warned. He said U.S. operations in Iran will continue until all of the administration’s objectives are met. The details of those objectives remained foggy Sunday.
While the days-old military operation is far from Mission Accomplished, it did check off a significant box: taking out Iran’s evil-as-poison supreme leader, or the “avuncular and magnanimous” religious scholar as the inexhaustible clown car that is the New York Times described a guy who legitimately could be likened to Adolf Hitler. Old Uncle Khamenei is dead now, and presumably checking into hotel hell (You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave).
But the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s army of Islamist whack jobs live on to fight in his perverted, unholy war against the United States, Israel, and the western world at large.
We may already be seeing that jihad’s first casualties at home in response to the military operations in Iran. A gunman who killed two and injured 14 others outside a bar in Austin early Sunday morning was wearing a “Property of Allah” sweatshirt and a t-shirt underneath bearing an Iranian flag, authorities told multiple news outlets. The Senegalese national, who was fatally shot by responding officers, was a nationalized U.S. citizen, law enforcement said. At a press conference, Alex Doran, a special agent with the FBI’s San Antonio field office, said there were “indicators” found on the shooter and in his vehicle of a “potential nexus to terrorism.”
‘The Security of Our Homeland Is Not a Game’
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have warned for a while that the Biden administration’s open-border policies have exposed the nation to thousands of known and suspected terrorists among the millions of illegal immigrants that poured into the United States between 2021 and early 2025. How many will be emboldened to die for the jihadist cause and harm Americans inside America? What are their marching orders now that the leader of the world’s top sponsor of terrorism is dead and his regime is under attack by the two nations Khamenei and crew have vowed to wipe off the map?
What will the war to give Iranians the chance to “seize control” of their destiny mean for U.S. homeland security? We’re about to find out.
One thing should be clear: This is a really bad time to defund the Department of Homeland Security.
“As we face a heightened threat landscape, it is more important now than ever that @DHSgov be fully funded,” Rep. Vince Fong, a California Republican who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, admonished Democrats in an X post over the weekend. “Every agency tasked with protecting our nation must have the resources they need.”
ICE-hating Democrats last month partially shut down the government and stalled funding to much of DHS after Republicans refused to go along with “reforms” to Immigration & Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. The Dems’ demands would put agents in increased danger and severely tie the agencies’ hands in enforcing immigration laws. While ICE received a $75 billion bump in funding under Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, workers in other DHS agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Secret Service are working without pay until the budget impasse is settled.
“The security of our homeland is not a game,” Fong wrote.
‘It’s Terrifying’
Homeland Security already has been compromised by Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, and the invasion of illegal immigrants his administration welcomed and facilitated.
In August 2024, the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement issued a report highlighting how the Biden administration released into American communities nearly 100 illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist. The report, titled “Terror at Our Door: How the Biden-Harris Administration’s Open-Borders Policies Undermine National Security and Endanger Americans,” found that Biden’s DHS encountered more than 250 illegal immigrants on the terrorist watchlist between fiscal years 2021 and 2023 and released at least 99 of them into the United States.
In June, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection source told Fox News that Biden’s DHS arrested more than 1,500 Iranian nationals between fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2024, releasing 729 of the illegal immigrants into the U.S.
“It is unclear how many of the Iranians released into the U.S. were on the terrorism watchlist, as the Biden administration repeatedly denied Fox News’ Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals for the data,” the news outlet reported. The Biden administration reportedly was concerned about the privacy of the Iranians on the list, and determined that there was “minimal public interest” in the information as reasons to reject Fox News’ records request.
There could be many more Iranian nationals in the U.S. It’s not clear from which countries the 2 million known“gotaways” escaping custody at the border during the Biden years originated. Some 10 million people illegally crossed U.S. borders in the Biden years, the brunt of them entering the Southwest. Many were “caught and released” with very little in the way of background vetting.
“Biden’s DHS released at least 99 people on the terrorist watchlist into the U.S., and that’s just the ones we know about. When you think about the millions of gotaways on top of that, it’s terrifying,” Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Wisconsin Republican who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Federalist in a statement.
“Now would be a great time for Democrats to fully fund DHS, especially since there could be active terrorist cells operating inside our country,” Tiffany added.
Iranians have long been listed as Special Interest Aliens (SIAs), non-U.S. individuals that pose a national security risk, often “employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism,” according to DHS.
“[I]f there was ever a moment when the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) intelligence functions should be fully operational and prepared to thwart attacks against soft targets in the United States, this is it,” Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, wrote last Tuesday, just four days before the U.S. military launched Operation Epic Fury, its joint bombing operation with Israel against Iran.
“If there was ever a moment when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be acting on that intelligence to track down terrorist sleeper cells inside the country, this is it,” Mehlman added. “If ever there was a moment when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be poised to respond to perhaps multiple simultaneous attacks, this is it.”
Forced to Do More with Less
Democrats over the weekend continued to defend their stance on financially starving significant portions of homeland security, as they falsely claimed Trump needed congressional approval before the launching the operations in Iran.
“I don’t have any obligation to fund a Department of Homeland Security that is violating the law every day, just like I don’t have any obligation to support this war that is illegal as well,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
Speaker Mike Johnson told House Republicans in a call Sunday that the House will again vote on funding DHS later this week, Politico reported.
“It will be the original DHS funding bill House has already passed but is stuck in the Senate amid a standoff over Trump’s ICE and immigration enforcement operations,” the corporate news outlet posted on X.
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, “War is hell.” He ought to know. The legendary union general brought hell to the South in the critical closing campaigns of the Civil War, campaigns that did much to subdue the rebellion and bring peace back to a war-torn nation.
Only time will tell whether Trump’s foray into regime change proves prudent, but it’s likely more U.S. military caskets will be coming back from the war with Iran. With America made so vulnerable during the previous administration’s deadly immigration policies, tracking and breaking up terrorist threats to the homeland will demand greater vigilance from a DHS forced to do more with less.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
