US Border Patrol agents intercepted 16 people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list who entered the country illegally from Mexico, officials said this week.
According to data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the total number of encounters in the United States and Mexico for fiscal year 2023 is now 69, which could exceed the 98 recorded last year.
Last month, Southern Border agents stopped 16 people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list, CBP said.
CBP’s Field Operations Office encountered 214 individuals in the terrorist screening database this year at ports of entry on both the northern and southern borders. During the 2022 fiscal year, he had 380 concerns.
That number has increased significantly compared to 157 in 2021 and 196 in 2020. Between 2017 and 2020, he had eight terrorist watch list arrests between ports of entry, but in 2021 he had only 15.
The Biden administration is presiding over a record surge in illegal immigration, with nearly 2.4 million illegal immigrants arrested in fiscal year 2022.
The migrants encountered in the terrorist screening database represent only a fraction of the total of the more than 150,000 migrants who stopped by the US border in February. With the database numbers in mind, Republicans urged Biden to keep the border safer.
the number soaring from 1.7 million But it fell short of the 500,000 arrests in 2020 and nearly 1 million in 2019. So far, 2023 has surpassed that record, with CBP having recorded more than 762,000 Southwestern border arrests by January.
While the numbers look high overall, total anxiety did not spike much between January, when there were 128,877 people who crossed the border illegally, and February, when there were 128,913 people in total.
“New border enforcement measures kept February’s overall encounters roughly the same as January,” said CBP Acting Director Troy Miller.
CBP has launched a new app that allows immigrants to make appointments at ports of entry and request humanitarian exceptions to Title 42 public health orders, Miller said.
“This app keeps smugglers out and reduces migrant exploitation,” says Miller. “CBP continues to improve the app to address feedback received from stakeholders.”
