While, for hopefully obvious reasons, I can’t delve into this in further detail, I offer the following as an example - and there are many more such citations regarding George (Korkor Artin) Tajirian, an Iraqi of Armenian extraction:
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/us/iraqi-accused-of-smuggling-hundreds-in-mideast-to-us.html
I worked this case with multiple federal agencies. The number of middle easterners smuggled into the US from as early as 1990 until Tajirian’s arrest in 1998 easily exceeded the “hundreds” referenced in the article. Tajirian was acting not just as a smuggler, but in an official capacity on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s government, which, according to US media in 2001 and beyond, “never had any direct involvement in terrorism,” despite the presence of Abu Nidal, the 15 may Organization, Abu Ibrahim/Husayn Muahammad al-Umari and others.
Tajirian died in federal custody in early 2002 before he could be fully debriefed. Later (current) smuggling efforts became much more expansive and much more sophisticated, with support cells throughout the Middle East and Europe that were/are connected to others in the Americas, including Mexico and the United States.
To give you an idea of the scope of the cross-border smuggling of OTMs (Other Than Mexican) apprehended by the Border Patrol in FY2017, of the 310,531 apprehensions made by the Border Patrol, 180,077 (58%) were OTMs, many of which were from Islamic countries, i.e., not just the Middle East. Border Wall anyone?
that explains:
“In Iraq, Iranian forces “have access to U.S. funds and equipment in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Iraq’s Ministry of Interior,” Pregent said.”