Recent apprehensions of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia along the southern U.S. border have renewed security concerns in the region, amid claims that Phoenix in particular is becoming a “hotbed” for terror recruiting and activity.

One source told Fox News the FBI even briefed Phoenix police two weeks ago to notify them that the Islamic State is trying to recruit “high-school age students.”

Agents are on the look-out for any suspicious activity. Fox News has learned Border Patrol agents in Arizona caught three Saudi nationals last Saturday trying to evade a highway checkpoint. They were detained in an area considered one of the hottest smuggling routes in the U.S. and just a few miles from where, two days later, agents arrested five Pakistani nationals and one Afghani trying to enter the U.S. illegally.

“When it comes to terrorism there are no coincidences, and that fact that three Saudi Arabians were detained in the same area … days before Pakistanis and Afghans were arrested in the same area isn’t coincidence,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

The Border Patrol called the FBI, which responded with Homeland Security Investigations, and officials took custody of the Saudis. The three did not have required identification on them at the time but told agents they entered the U.S. on student visas to attend the University of Arizona. That turned out to be true. (Read more from “This US City Has Been Flagged as Potential ‘Hotbed’ for Terror Recruiting” HERE)

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What are we doing to fight Islamic terror?

This is a pressing question for most Americans, especially given that Obama has no strategy. But why not start with a simple proposition? Let’s not fund terror with American taxpayer dollars.

Yet, astoundingly, a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats voted yesterday to preserve foreign aid to the so-called Palestinian government. While marking up an authorization bill for a number of programs within the State Department, Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) offered an amendment to eliminate aid to the Islamic terror entity known as the Palestinian Authority (it sounds nicer than their authentic name, the Palestinian Liberation Organization). Sadly, only four other Republicans joined with him in supporting the amendment: Sens. Risch (ID), Gardner (CO), Barrasso (WY) and Rubio (FL). Every Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, along with GOP Sens. Corker (TN), Johnson (WI), Flake (AZ), Purdue (GA), and Isakson (GA), voted to continue funding the terrorists.

According to the Congressional Research Service, we have sent roughly $5 billion to the Palestinian government since the mid-1990s. Our annual aid has fluctuated, but has hovered around $500 million per year. The worst practices in the modern world of jihad have been taught to the Arab world by these people, yet our taxpayer dollars and military training have gone into propping up this violent “government.”

While some conservatives feel Sen. Paul is weak on U.S. policy with Iran, he has been much tougher than most Republicans when it comes to Palestinian terrorists. Paul released the following statement after his amendment was defeated:

“American tax dollars continue to flow to governments that openly seek the destruction of one of our nation’s biggest allies, Israel. My support has not and will not waiver; I will continue pushing to cut off all U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority until they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, renounce terrorism, and purge terrorists from their ranks.”

Paul is absolutely correct. The much-vaunted Mahmoud Abbas, who is regarded as an Angel of Peace among the “international community,” has consistently refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist and has consistently told his people they will continue to struggle until “all of Palestine is liberated.” A post on the official Facebook page of Abbas’ Fatah faction showed a picture of terrorists in the military wings of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, under the banner of “brothers-in-arms: one God, one homeland, one enemy, one goal.”

So how could the committee members, led by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD), agree to continue aid to Arafat’s terror group, even as they have joined in a unity government with Hamas? Aren’t we ostensibly sending money to those who are formally designated as terrorists by our own State Department? And remember, it’s pretty hard to get on the State Department’s terror list.

During the markup, Corker said he opposed the amendment because it would undermine the “Palestinian Authority” and risk destabilizing the “West Bank.”

This assertion cannot be farther from the truth. The so-called Palestinian government has been given more global aid per capita than any other country or entity, yet it is still a corrupt, terror-laden basket case. The entire purpose of keeping the bucks flowing into the Fatah-Hamas coffers is to create an Arab-Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, what Corker erroneously refers to as the “West Bank” (hearkening back to Jordan’s illegal occupation in 1949 of the area west of the Jordan River). There is no greater potential destabilizing event than the creation of such a state. If a Hamas-Fatah state is not bad enough, there is no doubt that, given its geographical proximity to the unstable Jordan and Syrian Golan, this region would fall to the Islamic State the minute Israel’s military pulls out of the area.

Consequently, any continued aid to the PLO will only buttress Obama’s inexorable attempt to create a terror state in one of the most sensitive parts of the Middle East. At the very least, Senate Republicans should have conditioned aid to the PLO on Obama not supporting their bid for statehood at the UN.

Unfortunately, we can’t even get the political elites to agree not to send taxpayer dollars to the most violent terrorists. Just this past year, the U.S. has shipped to the Lebanese army a number of weapons, including AGM-114 Hellfire II missiles, M198 Howitzers, Humvees, and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition. The Lebanese Army is nothing more than a puppet of Hezbollah, which is a proxy of Iran.

Hence, a reaffirmation of aid to both of Israel’s top enemies – Hezbollah and Hamas – in the same week.

Why are so few politicians concerned about this dangerous and immoral use of American taxpayer dollars?

Washington is indeed broken. (See “Senate Panel Defends Taxpayer Funding for Palestinian Terrorists”, originally posted HERE)

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