Fox News reports that a number of the individuals who are on the FBI's terror watch list have been arrested after crossing into America illegally via the U.S.-Mexico border.
Per the outlet, "agents stopped 16 people on the FBI’s terror watch list who crossed illegally at the southern border in February."
Fox reports that this increases the total number of encounters, in the 2023 Fiscal Year - which began in October 2022 - between U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and individuals on the FBI's terror watch to 69.
This figure, according to the outlet, is on pace to surpass Fiscal Year 2022 total, which was 98.
There are many reasons why Republicans oppose the sort of open border policies that we have seen from the administration of President Joe Biden. And, one of those reasons is that bad actors will likely try to use the open southern border to gain access to the United States.
The latest figures show that this is exactly what is happening: Biden's open border policies are facilitating the entry of individuals on the FBI's terror watch list into America.
Contrast the numbers, cited above, of the Biden administration with those of the administration of former President Donald Trump. Under Trump's leadership, there were only eight encounters between the CBP and individuals on the terror watch list during the period from 2017 to 2020.
It was only in 2021 that the number all of a sudden jumped to 15. And, now, we are seeing significantly higher figures, such as 98 in 2022.
The troublesome question is how many individuals on the FBI's terror watch list, under Biden's watch, may have been actually able to gain access to America, through the southern border.
December 2022 was a high point in terms of the illegal immigration that has been taking place at the southern border under the Biden administration. In that month, the CBP had 251,487 illegal alien encounters.
Biden received so much pushback about the southern border crisis - including from some Democrats - that he actually decided to put out a plan that he claimed would address the problem.
The latest figures, from February, show that the CBP only had about 129,000 encounters in that month. So, it looks as though Biden's plan is working. But, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently reported:
The Biden administration’s new “border enforcement measures” have not succeeded in curbing record levels of illegal immigration, they’ve just rerouted much of the flow through legal ports of entry.
In actuality, according to FAIR, CBP still had 212,266 total encounters with illegal aliens in February.
How many are bad actors? And, how many got through?
