66 Aliens on Terrorist Watchlist Nabbed at the Southwest Border

The latest CBP statistics reveal that Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border have apprehended 66 illegal entrants on the terrorist watchlist in the first 10 months of FY 2022 — more than doubling the total of such apprehensions in the last five fiscal years. That comes as the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at DHS — that department’s watchdog — found that Afghan nationals who “pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities” may have been released into the United States during our evacuation efforts from that country. Welcome to Joe Biden’s new pre-September 11th world.

Terrorist Watchlist Apprehensions Soar. Among the enforcement statistics CBP publishes monthly are what it terms “Terrorist Screening Dataset Encounters”.

Those statistics reveal that between October 2021 and August 2022, Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border apprehended 66 aliens whose identities appear in the “Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS)” — aka: the “watchlist” — described as “the U.S. government’s database that contains sensitive information on terrorist identities”.

Either dryly or innocently (or both), CBP asserts that “Encounters of watchlisted individuals at our borders are very uncommon, underscoring the critical work CBP Agents and Officers carry out every day on the frontlines.” While it’s a relief that agents are not nabbing known or suspected terrorists on an hourly basis, that sort of misses the point.

Nineteen foreign nationals (none of whom, to be fair, crossed the border illegally), carried out the four individual but coordinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a singular event that claimed thousands of lives, resulted in billions of dollars in damages and losses, and changed the country and Americans’ lives forever.

That “underscores” the danger that even a few misguided foreign nationals bent on destruction pose to the United States and its institutions. Regrettably, CBP’s statistics suggest that there are more than a few who are trying to follow those 19 hijackers.

To put those 66 watchlist apprehensions into context, Border Patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico line have stopped more than twice as many known or suspected terrorists in just the 10 months ended August 31 than they did in the prior five fiscal years combined (26 total TSDS apprehensions).

That’s not the worst part, however, because while Border Patrol agents have been dealing with those individuals, the number of known or suspected terrorists who have been stopped by their colleagues at the Southwest border ports of entry has dropped significantly.

Through the end of August, CBP officers at those ports have encountered 60 individuals on the TSDS in FY 2022. That may or may not include U.S. citizens (who can also be stopped at the ports), but notably it puts those officers on pace to encounter 72 people with TSDS “hits” this fiscal year, well below their watchlist total for FY 2021 (103), FY 2019 (280), FY 2018 (155), or FY 2017 (116).

That would equal the number of known or suspected terrorists stopped at our Mexican border ports in FY 2021 (again, 72), but it’s important to remember those ports weren’t screening many travelers from late March 2021 on, due to Covid-19 pandemic-related travel restrictions.

If Border Patrol is apprehending a record number of suspected terrorists, isn’t that good? No, actually — it’s a bad omen. Historically, alien terrorists have entered legally through the ports (generally through subterfuge and fraud) because experience has shown it’s the easiest way to avoid detection at entry.

Illegal entry across the border, on the other hand, carries a much higher risk of detection because agents are going to thoroughly question, search, and vet every alien who avoids the ports on the way in. Well, everyone they catch at least.

The problem is that Border Patrol agents are currently so swamped transporting, processing, and caring for aliens who are turning themselves in (in the reasonable expectation of release into this country), that they are increasingly incapable of catching aliens seeking to evade detection and capture. A half-million such “got-aways” have successfully entered this fiscal year alone.

And, logically, every alien on the watchlist is seeking to evade detection and capture.

As a former INS terrorist prosecutor, acting head of the agency’s National Security Law Division, and staff director of the House national security subcommittee, I have some professional experience in terrorist travel patterns. If I were a terrorist or terrorist organizer, illicit travel across the depleted border would be the path I would follow into the country.

You don’t have to believe me, however.

Biden’s original Border Patrol chief, Rodney Scott, made similar points in a letter that he sent to Senate leadership on September 11, 2021. Rhetorically, Scott asked if “[l]ow level, unsophisticated and uneducated smugglers are illegally crossing the border and increasingly evading apprehension daily”, why wouldn’t “well-resourced terrorist networks, criminal organizations, and hostile nations” not be “doing the same”? Why not, indeed.

https://cis.org/Arthur/66-Aliens-Terrorist-Watchlist-Nabbed-Southwest-Border

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