Border Patrol nabs 15 people on terror watch list in record-breaking May
Border Patrol agents nabbed ꦦ15 people listed on the FBI’s terror watch list trying to sneak across the US-Mexico border in May — bringing the alarming total since October to 50 amid a record of migrants, according to official figures.
The possible terrorists were among the staggering 239,416 migrants encountered at the southern border last month, according to a breakdown of Customs and Border Protection figures and obtained by Theও Post.
The total number of May crossings marks the highest number of migrant encounters recorded in one month ever and brings the total migrant en🦩counters in FY 2022 to more than 1.5 million, .
Meanwhile, the number of potential terrorists buste♍d crossing the southern border during fiscal 2002, which runs from❀ October 2021 through September, rose to 50.
That’s more than the total of 30 caught crossing both the southern and northern borders during fiscal 2017 through 2021.
Experts warn that the rising number of illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the US could mean that many others on the terror l🎉ist may be sneaking in undetected.
“The big worry is with the chaos down there, w꧃hen you have these kinds of people coming to the border, you have to assume that some of them got in,” Todd Bensman, author of “,” about how terrorists try to exploꦯit the immigration system, told the Washington Times.
Bensman, who tracked potentialও terrorists wꦡhen he worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the average used to be one or two every few months.
The new total is a “bad number,” he warned.
“It’s always a five-alarm fire if somebody comes over who’s on the TSDB,” he told the newspaper, referring to the Terrorist Screening Database.
Last month, an Iraqi man living in Ohio was busted by federal agents over a plot to assassinate former President George W. Bush. The plan included smu💦ggling four ISIS-linked killers across the southern border.
Mark Morgan, CBP commissioner during the Trump administration, said the 15 encounters of people on the watch list and the surge in the overall number of migrants indicate a “legitimate national security vulnerability on our southern border.”
“I’m concerned that the next terrorist attacker is already in the United States because of this administration’s op𓆉en border policies,” Morgan told the Washington Times.
Rep. John Katko (R-NY), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, also recalled how he was criticized last year when he relay꧅ed concern among agents that💛 terror suspects were entering the US.
“Fast forward a year, and our initial concerns have not only been vindicated but have grown to represent one of the most disturbing facets of the Biden administration’s border crisis,” Katko told the newsp♊aper in a statement Thursday.
He said the chaos at the border makes it difficult to determine exactly “how many watch-listed individuals have entered the United States amidst the chaos at our southwest border.”
Roughly 12,000 people are in the custody of CBP on an average day,🥂 but fewer than half of them are removed, the Washington Times reported.
The remainder are let go at the border or transferred to other age🌺ncies.
said people who appear on the terrorist database and are picked up after entering th𝔍e US can be detained and removed, or turned over to another government agency or law enforcement authorities for prosecution.
The agency doesn’t break down those specific figures.
