EXCLUSIVE: The chair of the House Intelligence Committee is urging Americans across the country to practice "a higher degree of vigilance and situational awareness" as concerns about possible terror threats in the U.S. skyrocket over the situation in the Middle East.
Chair Rick Crawford, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital in an interview that people in the U.S. "need to have a sense of situational awareness and understand that there are people outside the United States that do seek to do us harm."
President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to hit three key Iranian nuclear bases over the weekend in a mission deemed a success by the vast majority of Republicans and some pro-Israel Democrats.
The targeted strikes, which U.S. officials said are not an act of war, came after a week of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Israel, warning Iran was dangerously close to a nuclear weapon, launched preemptive strikes in and around Tehran earlier this month that killed several of the Islamic regime's top military officials and nuclear scientists.
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The Department of Homeland Security issued a memo warning of a "heightened threat environment" over the Israel-Iran conflict shortly after the U.S. strike. Meanwhile, NBC News reported that Iran threatened to activate sleeper cells in the U.S. if attacked.
It has rung alarm bells for top U.S. national security officials both in and outside of Congress.
Crawford, whose panel oversees the U.S. intelligence community, blamed the former Biden administration's actions for creating an illegal immigration crisis that he said could have potentially allowed bad actors to enter the U.S. in recent years.
"We know historically, Iran being the leading state sponsor of terror, we also know that during the Biden years, there were hundreds of Iranians that were allowed to come in, pretty much unchecked," he said, referring to people who crossed the border illegally.
"We don't necessarily have a good read on where they are, what their intentions are… And so I think we need to redouble our [counter-intelligence] posture in the United States."
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White House border czar Tom Homan said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that there were "1,272 nationals of Iran released in the country between the [Office of Field Operations] and the Border Patrol" under former President Joe Biden.
On Congress' part, Crawford said the next fiscal year's Intelligence Authorization Act would broadly address the heightened terror environment in the U.S.
"We want to step up our [counter-intelligence] presence here at home and make sure that across the federal law enforcement enterprise, that they're adequately postured and resourced to address that threat," he said.
The Arkansas Republican also urged Americans to remember that Iran is also "trying to instill a sense of fear" with its threats.
"I do think if there are terror cells in the United States, at some point they could act. I don't think it would be anything on the scale of a 9/11, but it would certainly be designed to - just as the name implies - to inflict terror and cause the American people to adjust behavior and cause economic fallout and social upheaval and things of this nature," he said.
Nonetheless, he warned Americans to go about their daily lives aware of their surroundings, particularly in large public spaces.
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"For example, I mean, if something doesn't feel right…don't go there. Trust your judgment on that. I mean, just because you live in Arkansas as I do, doesn't necessarily mean that you're insulated from threats," he said.
"It also doesn't necessarily mean that you should be living in fear. It just means that if you see something amiss, if you have sort of a sense that maybe something's out of place, you know, trust your instincts. Maybe you need to call law enforcement, maybe you need to just remove yourself from a given situation if you don't feel like it's safe."
In the meantime, Crawford said he and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will be seeking more information from federal officials.
"Absolutely, we'll be engaging with the intelligence community to get better insights into what's going on and and updated information in real time," he said, adding the panel generally gets information "quickly" from the intelligence community.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
