Posted on May 19, 2023

Border Patrol Arrest 16 People on FBI Terror Watch List in April at Southern Border

Adam Shaw and Bill Melugin, Fox News, May 17, 2023

Border Patrol agents encountered 16 people who are on the FBI’s terror watch list attempting to enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border between ports of entry in April, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.

CBP stats show that 16 people — more than all four years of fiscal years 17, 18, 19 and 20 combined — were stopped by Border Patrol agents in the month of April.

It means there have so far been 98 encounters at the southern and northern borders between ports of entry in FY 23 so far. That’s the same as all of FY 22. There were 16 in FY21, 3 in FY 20 and FY19, 6 in FY18 and two in FY12.

The numbers at the ports of entry themselves are much bigger, with 295 in FY23 so far, compared to 380 last fiscal year.

The watch list, officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) is the government’s database that “contains sensitive information on terrorist identities.”

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“Those 16 individuals are only the ones we know about. Imagine how many have crossed Biden’s open border undetected,” the Republican House Homeland Security Committee account tweeted.

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