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A warning from some Texas congressmen: Middle Eastern terrorists may be trying to pose as Mexican immigrants.

But is it a warning based on fact or politics?

Some people in Houston are worried about the message.

You couldn’t miss it during the election.

Texas politicians saying the border needed protection, not just to stop undocumented workers, but terrorists.

A month before the election, Mike McCaul, a congressman from a district northwest of Houston, released a report.

It said that just this summer, seven Iraqis were caught in Brownsville and that the Border Patrol found a jacket with a military patch written in Arabic.

The report said they were examples of “ominous threats to national security.”

It was big news in the Valley.

What’s more, the Web site of Houston Congressman John Culberson says Islamic terrorists are learning Spanish.

He talked to 11 News from Washington.

“The FBI director has confirmed that there’s Middle Easterners with known al-Qaida connections assuming false Hispanic identities entering the United States illegally and disappearing," he said.

11 News looked into what the congressmen are saying and found some of it did check out. But some of the assertions seemed dubious if not downright offensive to some Muslim Americans

For example, there was never any proof offered that those Iraqis found on the border had anything to do with terrorism.

And the Muslim name changing?

We were told by an FBI spokesperson in Houston that yes, they investigated several cases locally and found it was true.

But not because the Muslims were terrorists but rather because they were tired of being discriminated because of their Muslim names.

“If there is an Arab person and his name is Isa means Jesus, literally it means Jesus, guess what, to change it to Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with that," Rodwan Saleh said.

Saleh is a computer consultant and president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.

He himself has been detained at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

“I’m an American citizen, I was born in this country,” Saleh said.

He believes he was detained because of his name and looks — the things used to profile terror suspects.

Are politicians now exploiting the fear of Middle Eastern terrorists to drum up support for immigration reform?

“It makes Muslims feel very inferior.”

Congressman McCaul told 11 News by e-mail that his report in no way labels all Muslims as terrorists, and Culberson said, “It is important for elected officials not to exaggerate it. I’ve always done my best to rely on the facts.”

Facts, fear and debate over who’s coming across the border.