Border Patrol arrested 127 illegal migrants whose names appeared on the terror watchlist between October 2022 and May, a nearly 30% increase from all of fiscal year 2022, according to updated U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
Border agents captured 27 migrants in April alone, when the Trump-era expulsion order known as Title 42 ended, whose names were on the terror watchlist, according to the data, which CBP updated Tuesday. Border Patrol encountered three migrants whose names appeared on the watchlist in fiscal year 2019, three in fiscal year 2020 and 15 in fiscal year 2021 and 98 in fiscal year 2022. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Romanians Who Entered The US Illegally Are Suspected Of Committing Crimes Across The Country)
BROWNSVILLE, TX – MAY 03: Two Border Patrol vehicles and military-style humvees are parked along the border wall near Texas Southmost College on May 3, 2023 in Brownsville, Texas. Two days ago President Biden announced that 1,500 active-duty troops would be sent to the U.S.-Mexico border as Title 42 is expected to expire next week. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)
“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. DHS works tirelessly to secure our borders through a combination of highly trained personnel, ground and aerial monitoring systems, and robust intelligence and information sharing networks,” CBP says on its website of such watchlist arrests.
Out of the 127 individuals on the watchlist nabbed by Border Patrol, 125 were arrested at the southern border with Mexico. Border Patrol captured the two others at the northern border with Canada.
In fiscal year 2022, the number of illegal immigrants considered to be of “special interest” to authorities due to their countries of origin posing potential risks to national security, increased by nearly 600% to 25,627, according to internal CBP data previously obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Anybody that doesn’t think that serious threats to this country are sneaking in right now is naïve,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott previously told the DCNF at the time of the “special interest” migrant apprehensions.
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