A former Obama DHS adviser says sanctuary states let immigrant communities isolate without assimilating, creating conditions that drive radicalization after a foiled Mall of America terror plot.
Charles Marino, a Newsmax national security analyst who served as a senior law enforcement adviser at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, tied the latest domestic terror scare directly to failed immigration and assimilation policy. On Thursday’s “American Agenda,” he pointed to communities in sanctuary states that operate with little pressure to join American life.
Marino framed the problem as infiltration by unvetted people carrying dangerous ideologies, then isolation that keeps those ideas alive and spreads them. He said anyone shocked by rising incidents of this kind is “living on another planet.”
Breitbart reported his warning that sanctuary rules have permitted the same pattern seen early in London: separate enclaves with no real plan to adopt U.S. culture.
The comments came after federal agents stopped an ISIS-inspired mass-casualty plan at the Mall of America in Minnesota. The case fits the pattern Marino described, American-born radicalization inside communities that keep strong overseas cultural ties.
Authorities arrested 18-year-old Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, after a nearly two-year investigation. He had pledged allegiance to ISIS and planned to attack the busy shopping center, possibly on October 24 during a Hmong arts celebration.
The Washington Examiner noted the yearslong FBI operation and the announcement by Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor that agents had stopped the attack in support of ISIS.
Mohamud paid an undercover FBI employee $600 for an AK-47-style rifle, magazines, and 200 rounds of live ammunition. The weapon was inoperable. Agents had monitored him since December 2024 after he expressed interest in joining al-Shabab or ISIS.
In chat messages he stated he was “100% sure” about killing 30 to 60 non-Muslims. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen later described the defendant as a radicalized young man who needed watching.
"This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched... Agents were able to detect a threat, and disrupt it, before the defendant carried out his intention to kill, in his words, maybe 30 to 60 people."
PBS reported those details of the long surveillance and the undercover sale that ended the plot before any shots were fired.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Mohamud allegedly obtained a weapon he hoped to use in a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, but agents arrested him and stopped the plan. Sen. Amy Klobuchar praised the work and called for continued major investments in anti-terrorism and local law enforcement.
The New York Post carried her statement thanking officers for preventing both a mass shooting and a terrorist attack at the mall.
"I’m grateful for the heroic work of law enforcement that prevented a mass shooting and terrorist attack at the Mall of America. This shows why we continue to need major coordinated investments in anti-terrorism and local law enforcement to stop attacks like these."
Republican Senate candidate Michele Tafoya also thanked FBI Minneapolis and local officers, framing the choice in the coming election as law and order versus more of the same. The case has already become part of the midterm debate over public safety in Minnesota.
Fox News highlighted her warning about elevated threats and the broader pattern of Somali gang violence in the state.
Marino did not claim the Mall of America plot stood alone. He described a repeated sequence: people arrive from special-interest locations such as Somalia, settle in sanctuary jurisdictions that tolerate separation, and then radicalize both newcomers and American-born residents who still share strong cultural alignment with those countries.
He put it plainly on air.
"Anybody claiming to be surprised that we’re seeing more and more of these types of incidents is living on another planet, because we have been infiltrated, as a country, by dangerous, unvetted people with even more dangerous ideologies. And you’re talking about communities in sanctuary states that have been permitted, just like we saw very early on in London, that have been allowed to isolate themselves, with no plans to assimilate to the U.S. culture in any way."
That isolation, he argued, produces the next stage.
"And so now you have the perfect storm of a collision of these dangerous people coming from special interest locations like Somalia, isolating themselves, and they’re influencing American-born people that also still share a strong cultural alignment with countries like Somalia. And so, people become radicalized."
Marino’s critique lands on the same policy failures that have drawn fire in other recent cases involving sanctuary rules and enforcement gaps. Similar concerns have surfaced when sanctuary cities complicate ICE operations and raise the risk of deadly force encounters.
The Mall of America suspect was born in the United States. That fact undercuts the claim that only recent arrivals pose the danger. Marino’s point is that non-assimilation turns cultural affinity into a pipeline for ideology, whether the person holds a U.S. passport or not.
Prosecutors have already laid out how the Minnesota case unfolded after the defendant pledged loyalty to ISIS and moved from talk to concrete preparation. Readers can see the charging details in earlier coverage of how a Minnesota man plotted the Mall of America attack.
Sanctuary policies were sold as compassion. In practice they remove the expectation that newcomers will learn the language, obey the same laws, and share basic civic habits. When those expectations disappear, parallel communities form. Some stay peaceful. Others become recruiting grounds.
Marino’s experience inside DHS during the Obama years gives the warning extra weight. He is not a partisan outsider inventing a crisis. He is describing patterns he watched from the inside and now sees repeating.
The same dynamic appears when local governments refuse cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. That refusal has been linked to higher risks during removal operations, a point Marino has raised before when discussing how sanctuary policies fuel deadly confrontations with ICE.
Federal prosecutors and the FBI did their jobs in Minnesota. They watched a radicalized teenager for nearly two years, documented his intent, and arrested him before he could open fire on shoppers. That success does not erase the conditions that produced him.
Open questions remain about how many similar plots are still forming inside the same isolated networks. Marino’s answer is blunt: expect more until the isolation ends and assimilation becomes non-negotiable again.
Taxpayers fund the malls, the schools, the police overtime, and the long FBI investigations that clean up after elite policy experiments. They also live with the fear that the next “perfect storm” may not be stopped in time. The choice is simple, demand assimilation and secure vetting, or keep pretending that separate communities with no stake in American culture will somehow stay peaceful forever.
Law-and-order voters already know which side of that choice keeps people alive.
