Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, citing reports from conservative website Judicial Watch, said this week that ISIS has terrorist training camps in Mexico just south of the U.S. border.
Speaking with Breitbart News Radio on SiriusXM this week, the congresswoman from Tennessee spoke about Turkish officials who cited the U.S. southern border as an example of how difficult it is to close a border.
"I thought it was so interesting that when our president told Turkey to seal that border with Syria they said, 'well you go seal your southern border,' the reason they do that is because they know that the terrorists have said they are going to exploit the open, southern border," Blackburn said.
"We know from Judicial Watch and other reports that those terrorist training camps are down there," she said.
Blackburn is the not first Republican member of Congress to cite the Judicial Watch report on Mexican ISIS camps, which on more than on occasion has been declared unfounded by U.S. officials, including FBI Director James Comey.
"I know since there's been a lot of attention to this in the media that has reached my eyes and ears in Washington," Comey said earlier this year. "The media reports on if there is an ISIL camp across the border here in El Paso? Nonsense. Not true. It frustrates me a little bit because my folks have to run out such things, because we do run out every tip to make sure there isn't something to it. There is nothing to it."
Similarly, a Homeland Security spokesman said the Judicial Watch report was false, telling the Daily Mail, "we are aware of absolutely nothing credible to substantiate this claim." The State Department called the claim of ISIS camps at the border "unfounded."
Blackburn, who has called for a pause in the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States, also said during the interview that people in the U.S. should be trying to help refugees remain in the Middle East.
"I don't know why people are not jumping up and down saying, 'look, lets help them over in that region to keep these refugees there,'" Blackburn said. "These refugees don't even want to be coming here, by and large, they want to be in their region of the world. I understand that, I get it."