Border brokers arrest 16 individuals on FBI’s terror watchlist

US Border Patrol brokers stopped 16 individuals on the FBI’s terror watch record who illegally crossed into the nation from Mexico, authorities stated this week — with new information displaying border arrests this yr are on tempo to surpass 2022’s report.

The full variety of encounters on the US-Mexico for fiscal yr 2023 is now 69 and can probably exceed the 98 encounters documented final fiscal yr, based on information launched by Customs and Border Safety (CBP).

Final month, brokers on the southern border stopped 16 individuals who had been on the FBI’s terror watch record, CBP stated.

CBP’s Workplace of Subject Operations has encountered 214 individuals on the Terrorist Screening Database at ports of entry at each the northern and southern border this fiscal yr. In the course of the fiscal yr 2022, there have been 380 apprehensions.

The quantity has jumped significantly in comparison with 157 within the fiscal yr 2021 and 196 within the fiscal yr 2020. Between 2017 and 2020 there have been eight terror watch-list arrests between ports of entry and in 2021 there have been solely 15.

The Biden administration has presided over a report surge in unlawful immigration — with almost 2.4 million unlawful border-crossing arrests in fiscal yr 2022.

Migrants encountered on the Terrorist Screening Database are solely a small fraction of the general variety of migrants — greater than 150,000 in February — stopped on the US border. With the database numbers in thoughts, Republicans have urged Biden to raised safe the border.

That quantity shot up from 1.7 million in fiscal 2021 however was lower than the five hundred,000 arrests in 2020 and almost 1 million in 2019. Thus far, 2023 is ready to outpace that report, with over 762,000 Southwest border apprehensions recorded by CBP via January.

Whereas numbers look like greater total, there wasn’t a lot of a soar in whole apprehensions between January when there have been 128,877 individuals who crossed the border illegally and in February, when there have been 128,913 whole.

“The brand new border enforcement measures saved February’s total encounter numbers almost even with January,” stated CBP Appearing Commissioner Troy Miller.

Based on Miller, CBP has launched a brand new app to permit migrants the power to schedule an appointment at a Port of Entry to request a humanitarian exception to the Title 42 public well being order.

“The app cuts out the smugglers and reduces migrant exploitation,” Miller stated. “CBP continues to make enhancements to the app to deal with suggestions we’ve got acquired from stakeholders.”