Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is done waiting — and after last week’s bombshell indictment of a Hamas-linked terrorist hiding out in Louisiana, he’s calling for a top-down security purge of Biden-era immigration policies.
On Wednesday, Cotton issued a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem demanding an immediate, comprehensive audit of all visas granted since 2021 — focusing specifically on applicants from high-risk nations like Egypt, Gaza, and elsewhere in the Middle East. The trigger? The arrest of Mahmoud Amin Ya’Qub al-Muhtadi, a 33-year-old Gazan national who allegedly took part in the brutal October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel — then slipped into the U.S. using a fraudulent visa under the Biden administration.
Cotton minced no words. “Since October 7, 2023, thousands of visa applications from Palestinians have been processed through Egypt, often without adequate review of digital footprints or terrorist watchlist cross-checks. The vetting process for al-Muhtadi’s application overlooked easily accessible evidence of his terrorist ties,” he wrote. “I urge DHS to conduct an audit of all visas issued through high-risk countries since 2021, prioritizing potential affiliations with Hamas or other designated terrorist groups.”
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The evidence is chilling. Federal prosecutors revealed al-Muhtadi’s cell phone was geolocated near Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the site of one of the deadliest Hamas-led slaughters on Oct. 7, where 60 innocents — some of them Americans — were butchered. FBI documents show al-Muhtadi issued battlefield-style commands over messaging apps: “Bring the rifles,” “get ready,” and “If you have a full magazine, bring it to me.” He wasn’t just a foot soldier. He was organizing fighters.
And yet, this man — an open member of the National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) — was granted a visa and green card by the Biden administration after applying in Cairo. His social media? Filled with images of him in fatigues, training with Russian weapons. All of this slipped past the State Department’s so-called “vetting.”
Al-Muhtadi entered through Dallas-Fort Worth in September 2024, lived in Tulsa, then Lafayette, Louisiana — where he was working in a restaurant when federal agents finally caught up with him. Cotton warned that al-Muhtadi is just one of many who may have quietly slipped into the U.S. under Biden’s lax oversight.
Cotton is now demanding a real-time terrorist watchlist that would proactively screen applicants from extremist-linked regions and immediate enhanced social media checks. “No terrorist should be able to slip through undetected,” he wrote, urging DHS and the FBI to coordinate.
This isn’t the first time Cotton’s led the charge on national security. In July, as pro-Hamas mobs defaced U.S. monuments and waved terrorist flags in D.C., Cotton introduced the No Visas for Violent Criminals Act, mandating deportation within 60 days for foreign nationals convicted of protest-related crimes. And last December, he introduced a bill requiring the U.S. to drop the term “West Bank” in favor of “Judea and Samaria,” reinforcing historical Jewish claims to the land.
Cotton’s broader message? America was at risk — not because terrorists are sneaking across borders—but because they were being invited in by a government asleep at the switch. The Biden administration’s blind spots weren’t just ideological — they were lethal.
