On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was in Del Rio, Texas, just a week away from graduating pilot training. It was a day that started when any other when I looked forward to what a festive start of my flight career should be.
Then everything changed. The horrible terrorist attacks on our nation not only changed the course of my life, but also revealed the fight of our generation.
After graduating, I then served as a hunting pilot in the US Air Force, with flying combat missions in the F-22 against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Twenty -four years later, the lessons I learned from that fateful day and during my combat service remain etched in the memory, as a reminder that our enemies always look in the shade, adjust and wait patiently.
This reality today guides my work as a member of the congress and chairman of the Subcommissie of the Hom Homeland Security on Terrorism and Intelligence, where disturbing trends confirm that terror threats remain very real. Our system blinks red and warns us of taking action.
Prepared, not paranoid: what you need to know to protect yourself against a possible terror attack
The reckless open policy of the BIDEN administration has created serious vulnerabilities in our national security. Under his vigilance, dangerous actors with well -known terror bands that are unnoticed in our country are crossed. Between April 2021 and January 2025 alone, more than 50 jihadist terrorist cases were reported in 30 states.
The worsening of this threat, customs and border protection registered nearly 400 meetings with individuals on the terrorhatellist in the same period. Although President Donald Trump’s government has taken decisive action to identify and deport many of these persons, there remains a disturbing truth. We still do not know how many terrorists have slipped through the cracks and now live among us.
Even more alarms is how terror threats have considerably evolved for our home country since 9/11 and have become technologically advanced and more dangerous.
Nowadays, terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Al Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah and others operate advanced technologies and global networks within the digital empire to wage war in ways that are more difficult to detect and stop. They arm coded messages apps such as Telegram to communicate and coordinate attacks, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to distribute propaganda and to recruit and radicalize lonely wolf actors.
The stability of our great nation depends on preventing political violence
These emerging technologies have become the new battlefield and we have to respond with urgency and precision.
That is why I lead the leadership in the congress to combat these bad actors through smart, meaningful legislation. My “Generative AI Terrorism Risk Assessment Act” would require the Ministry of Interior Security (DHS) to perform annual assessments on how terrorist groups use AI to distribute propaganda, recruit followers and plan attacks.
Moreover, my “counter online radicalization and terrorism act” would further strengthen our defense by making DHS mandatory to carry out annual threat assessments on terrorist risks of terrorist organizations that exploit foreign, cloud-based mobile and desktop message applications.
The United States cannot afford to fall behind. Our national security depends on our ability to proactively remain this quickly evolving, dynamic threats. Although these accounts help us to keep the curve first, much more needs to be done. We must also continue to support daring leadership that gives priority to our national security. The type of leadership President Trump has already delivered.
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From his first day back in office, President Donald Trump gave priority to terrorism by securing our borders and to deport internal threats that President Joe Biden allowed the country. The historical budget alignment package that was recently signed in the law also reflects the conference republicans and the dedication of the government to secure the home country. It allocates $ 5.91 billion to layered Homeland Defense Systems and $ 46 billion to finish the border wall.
President Trump has also withdrawn the dangerous limits of President Biden for the fight against terrorism, which returned the decision -making power to commanders in the field, rather than to force our war fighters to rely on Washington, DC, bureaucrats. Thanks to this kind of leadership, 272 jihadist terrorists have been eliminated all over the world since January 20.
In an era of ever -evolving threats for our home country, we must remember the 9/11 lesson: our freedom is not free. It requires constant vigilance, relentless determination and a willingness to confront evil before it reaches our coasts.
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We must keep this lesson at the forefront of our mind and as a leading force in our policy -making. Squeezing or negotiating an eye from a position of weakness, only encourages our enemies.
We should never forget that day, and we must remain ruthless in our determination to prevent such a tragedy ever happening.
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