Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, asserted Thursday that immigrants allowed into the U.S. during the Biden administration are the nation's top terrorism threat.
Kent, who lost two congressional races in Southwest Washington before being tapped by President Donald Trump for the counterterrorism post, testified at a contentious hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The hearing broke into partisan rancor with Republicans falling over themselves to praise Trump's leadership, while Democrats castigated Noem and Kent for their role in the administration's aggressive immigration sweeps. Protesters interrupted Noem's opening statement, yelling Stop ICE raids, the power of Christ compels you!"
Kent testified that the NCTC has identified 18,000 "known and suspected terrorists" who entered the U.S. on former President Joe Biden's watch, "who under normal circumstances would have never been allowed to come into our country." He did not specify how that figure was reached, but said his agency is "crunching the numbers" and looking for additional threats.
Kent's testimony, and exchanges with some members of Congress, provided a glimpse into how he may be wielding the powers of the counterterrorism center, which works with intelligence agencies and keeps a terrorism watchlist, to advance Trump's campaign to deport millions of immigrants.
He blamed Biden for the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last month. Prosecutors allege Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in 2021 and was living in Bellingham, shot the soldiers, killing one.
Lakanwal came here in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, an effort to resettle Afghans who faced potential retaliation from the Taliban for aiding U.S. war efforts in that country. He received asylum in April 2025. He faces a first-degree murder charge in the Nov. 26 shooting, which killed one National Guard soldier and badly wounded another.
A motive in that shooting has not been firmly established; Lakanwal had reportedly worked for a CIA counterterrorism unit in Afghanistan and struggled in the months leading up to the shooting, spending time alone in a dark room.
Kent called Lakanwal "the Afghan terrorist" and said he'd been vetted only for assisting the U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan, not for his suitableness to live in the U.S. He said Biden had used "a ruse" to let people like Lakanwal into the country.
Immediately after the Washington, D.C., shooting, Kent posted on social media that the proper U.S. response was to "revet and expel" all of the roughly 85,000 Afghans admitted to the country under Biden's watch.
In an exchange with Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., on Thursday, Kent went further, suggesting 2.7 million immigrants admitted to the U.S. from "Muslim regions and countries" were unsuitable to live here.
Crane played a video showing several unidentified Muslim men saying they agree with Islamic or Sharia law more than U.S. law. Crane said the footage — some with date stamps indicating it was recorded 10 years ago — showed "people who do not want to assimilate" and who "want to hurt Americans."
He asked Kent for his reaction.
"I think we didn't have control of our borders and we don't know who has come into our country," Kent said. He claimed the millions of immigrants from Muslim countries "probably share the values that you saw on that screen."
Pablo José Hernández, the congressman from Puerto Rico, challenged Kent's broad-brush claims about Muslims not sharing American values like freedom of speech.
"Mr. Kent, does the Bible say anything about freedom of speech?" Hernández asked.
"I'm not a biblical scholar," Kent said.
“I don’t think it does and I am concerned with singling out Muslims and specific religions to talk about how their religious dogma conflicts with our laws and constitution, Hernández said.
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