Former Obama DHS adviser Charles Marino warned migrant crises have expanded threats to include natives susceptible to radicalization, a risk he says officials are watching.
Charles Marino, who served as a Department of Homeland Security senior law enforcement adviser in the Obama administration, told NewsNation’s “Morning in America” that migrant surges in Europe and the United States did more than move people across borders. He said many arrivals came in unvetted, bringing both physical and ideological threats that widen the danger at home.
In remarks from Monday’s broadcast, Marino said the problem is not limited to newcomers. Once ideological threats enter, he argued, the threat profile grows to cover people already living in those countries who can be pulled into radical causes.
That warning lands amid ongoing fights over border control, deportation rules, and how far federal agencies will go to enforce the law. It also tracks with pressure on sanctuary policies that have complicated ICE operations in major cities.
Marino tied the risk directly to weak screening during the migrant crisis. He said Europe has faced a major surge, and the United States saw the same pattern under previous administrations.
His core point was blunt: officials often do not know who came in. That uncertainty, he said, covers more than violence or crime. It covers ideology that can spread.
Marino told the program:
"Europe, as we have been experiencing here in the United States under the previous administrations, [has] been dealing with a significant migrant crisis. And the reason why that is important is because many of the individuals, both Europe and here in the U.S., entered, they were unvetted, that is, we have no idea who they are. And these are not just physical threats that entered the region. These are also ideological threats. And what that does is it expands the threat profile, Alex. It now includes those that are native to these areas and are susceptible to becoming radicalized for a number of reasons."
In short, open-entry periods did not only import risk. They created conditions where people already here could be radicalized too.
That framing collides with years of soft-border politics that treated enforcement as optional and treated vetting gaps as someone else’s problem. It also sits beside legal fights over how DHS removes people, including a recent ruling that tightened third-country deportation procedures.
Marino did not treat the danger as abstract. He said the United States has to prepare for an asymmetrical response from adversaries, naming Iran and its proxies.
He put it this way:
"Well, it’s always been a worry, and we need to be prepared for this type of asymmetrical response from our adversaries, including Iran and their proxies."
Asymmetrical means the other side does not need matching armies or open battlefields. It can use networks, ideology, and people already inside the target country. When large numbers enter without solid screening, that playbook gets easier.
Marino said he believes the threat level inside the United States is already heightened and has been for a while. He also said he believes law enforcement and intelligence officials know it and are watching closely at home.
On that point he stated:
"I believe law enforcement and intelligence officials are aware of this and are paying close attention to this here at home."
Awareness is not the same as fixed policy. Voters still see the gap between warnings from people who worked inside DHS and the political class that spent years downplaying illegal immigration and resisting interior enforcement. That gap shows up again when the DHS chief calls out Democrats for coaching resistance to ICE.
Marino’s account is straightforward. Significant migrant pressure. Unvetted entrants. Physical threats and ideological threats. A wider pool of people who can be radicalized, including natives. Adversaries ready to exploit the opening. Officials who, in his view, see the elevated risk.
None of that requires a new theory of geopolitics. It requires basic cause and effect. If a country cannot control who enters, it cannot fully control what ideas and networks take root. Europe learned that the hard way. Marino said the United States lived through its own version under previous administrations.
The practical answer is not mystery. Secure the border. Restore serious vetting. Enforce removal. Stop treating immigration law as a suggestion. Those steps protect lawful residents and taxpayers first, and they shrink the space where foreign adversaries and radical recruiters operate.
Related enforcement fights keep proving the same point. When agencies pull back, illegal crossings and street-level chaos rise. When leaders restore tools such as ICE traffic stops after a sudden halt, they signal that the law still means something.
Marino also linked the expanded threat to people “native to these areas” who can be radicalized “for a number of reasons.” He did not spell out every pathway on air. He did make clear that ideology travels, and weak borders help it move.
That is why sanctuary rules and anti-enforcement politics matter far beyond city hall press conferences. Policies that shield illegal immigrants and slow removals do not stay local. They shape who stays, what networks grow, and how hard it becomes for line officers to do the job. Marino has also pointed to sanctuary practices in other settings tied to deadly force risks during ICE confrontations fueled by sanctuary policies.
The broadcast clip does not offer fresh arrest totals, watchlist figures, or a dated threat bulletin. What it does offer is a former DHS insider describing a pattern he says Europe and the United States already lived through: mass entry without knowing who crossed, then a broader radicalization risk that reaches people born here.
For readers who watched years of record encounters, catch-and-release, and political attacks on immigration officers, the logic is not complicated. Uncontrolled migration is not compassion. It is a security choice with domestic consequences.
Marino’s message was that the threat profile is larger than the border line itself. Physical danger and ideological danger arrived together, and natives can be pulled in. He says the people charged with protecting the country see it. The public should, too, and should demand leaders who treat vetting, removal, and enforcement as non-negotiable duties, not campaign afterthoughts.
Open borders do not only test patience. They test whether a nation still intends to know who is inside it, and who is trying to turn its own people against it.
