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In 2017, an informant for the Texas Department of Public Safety inside Mexico reported that three suspected Pakistani al-Qaeda operatives were about to cross the border. The alarming report landed on my desk because I worked for DPS’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, where I managed an analytical team that worked such threat matters alongside federal agencies inside the Austin-based Texas Fusion Center. 

Within a few days, U.S. Border Patrol agents picked up three Pakistanis near Laredo and reported it to my team. Per usual with reports of a possible terrorist crossing, red flags zipped up the pole to the governor’s office, who wanted a full assessment—yesterday.

So I, a civilian employee of the State of Texas with a DHS-sponsored security clearance, hopped in a truck with an intelligence officer whose partnership with a local law enforcement worker like me, on U.S. soil, might surprise people. He was with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. military’s spying and analys…