Border Patrol Stopped a Chilling Number of People on Terrorist Watchlist at Southern Border in 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — “Reporting indicates that multiple individuals with terrorist ties have been recently apprehended after illegally crossing the border, and that such encounters may be increasing. The American people deserve to know whether President Biden’s weak border policies are allowing terrorists to enter our homeland,” said Congressmen James Comer of Kentucky and John Katko of New York, the ranking Republican members of the House Oversight and the Homeland Security Committees respectively, in a letter to President Biden's Departemtn of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month.
Now, newly released Customs & Border Patrol data from 2021 show that ore than 40 migrants on the Terror Watchlist have been arrested by Customs & Border Protection (CBP) trying to enter the country illegally since President Biden took office on Wednesday, January 20th, 2021, according to newly released CBP data.Newly released Customs & Border Patrol data from 2021 show that at least 23 additional individuals on the U.S. Terrorist Watchlist were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol as they attempted to enter the country by coming across the Southern Border.
- READ MORE: 42 Migrants on Terror Watchlist Arrested Attempting to Enter U.S. Illegally under Biden: CBP data
The TSDB is a compilation of information about individuals who are either known or “reasonably suspected” of being involved in some sort of terrorism – and Melugin noted on Twitter that those are just the ones who were caught..
The data, sent to lawmakers in response to a Congressional Inquiry and obtained by Fox News Digital, says that since Jan. 20, 2021, U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations has "arrested 42 subjects who were on the terror watchlist and attempted to enter the United States illegally." The 23 terrorism suspect encounters were scattered across the Arizona, California and Texas sections of the border. Listed by Customs & Border Patrol Sectors from East-to-West:
- 4 were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley Sector
- 4 in the Del Rio Sector
- 3 in the El Paso Sector
- 2 in the Tucson Sector
- 2 in the Yuma Sector
- 4 in the El Centro Sector, and
- 4 in the San Diego Sector
This represents a much higher than the 23 originally revealed in Melugin's CBP FOIA (Southern border BP data in 2021 only) request
“Keep in mind, there were 400,000+ gotaways at the border last year, and multiple high level CBP sources tell us there have already been more than 300,000 known gotaways in the last 6 months,” said Melugin.
“Massive numbers are getting through without apprehension.”
“Massive numbers are getting through without apprehension.”
Migrants coming to the United States’ Southern Border who either have potential terror connections or are from terror-plagued regions are nothing new. The Center for Immigration Studies reported at the end of 2021 that in just the Del Rio Sector of the border, agents encountered 10s of 1,000s of migrants from over 105 different countries.In November alone, migrants were found coming from Syria, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the violent African country of Eritrea.
“We encounter individuals from all over the world attempting to illegally enter our country,” said Del Rio Sector Patrol Chief Jason D. Owens, according to the report.
“Our agents are focused and work hard to ensure that we detect, arrest, and identify anyone that enters our country in order to maintain safety of our communities,” Owens added.
“Our agents are focused and work hard to ensure that we detect, arrest, and identify anyone that enters our country in order to maintain safety of our communities,” Owens added.
With 1,000s of migrants from all over the world now atempting to cross at the U.S. Southern Border, Republicans have repeatedly called for the CBP data concerning the possible terrorism encounters to be publicly released.
“It is no secret that terrorists and other bad actors attempt to exploit weakness in border security and vetting to enter the United States,” Congressmen Comer and Katko in their letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
As Melugin noted, while many migrants are apprehended at the border, many more are never caught and enter the U.S. illegally and undetected.
Researchers at Yale and MIT developed a model to estimate what percentage of illegal immigrants were apprehended at the border. One author of the study found that only about 68% of illegal border crossers are apprehended.
“Applying that to estimates that 1.8 million migrants will be caught on the southern border this year, that means an additional 576,000 estimated illegal immigrants will successfully enter the U.S. this year,” the report noted.
“Applying that to estimates that 1.8 million migrants will be caught on the southern border this year, that means an additional 576,000 estimated illegal immigrants will successfully enter the U.S. this year,” the report noted.
Before retiring last August, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott (left,) – who is now a Senior Policy Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, Texas – sounded the alarm about the terror threat:“I firmly believe that it is a national security crisis,” he told agents, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it’s just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border — to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That’s a real threat.”
“Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it’s just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border — to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That’s a real threat.”
In October, Scott warned that besides individuals officially on record in the TSDB, there are many other terror threats at the border.
“We have terrorist threats we can’t get into in this type of a forum, but they are real,” Scott told Fox News at the time.
