DeSantis says if the US doesn't secure the southern border, it will be vulnerable for terror attacks

GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, it is crucial that the U.S. secures the southern border, or face a higher risk of terrorist attacks. 

“We have had more than 7 million people come in illegally under Biden, we don’t know who these people are, we’ve known from the very beginning of his administration that they are coming from all over the world,” DeSantis said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Wire. “They’re coming. People have come from Russia, China, Iran, other places in the Middle East.”

He added that he had been to the U.S.-Mexico border multiple times and said there are people coming over illegally from all over the world.

"And so the question is, are you trying to tell me that people that want to do us harm — whether nation states or terrorist groups — are not going to take advantage of that and try to exploit it?” he added.

Biden's time in the White House has seen record numbers of border encounters, with more than 7 million people illegally entering the country during his tenure.

“And I’ve said publicly before this thing had even happened with the tragedy in Israel, there will be unfortunately, if I had to bet, there’d be a terrorist attack that occurs in the United States at some point in the future that we’ll be able to tie back to the open southern border," DeSantis said during the interview. 

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza launched an attack against Israel on Saturday with rockets and ground forces, inflicting significant casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war following the attack.

Israeli soldiers fought Hamas militants in the streets of several southern cities on Sunday while repelling a rocket attack from Hezbollah terrorists in the north as America’s closest ally in the Middle East formally declared it was at war for the first time in a half century.