WASHINGTON, DC, May 9 – A new government report tells us that terrorists have joined the ranks of drug and human traffickers at our Mexican border. The Epoch Times reports that President Biden may have been deliberately seeking to downplay the growing number of terrorist encounters at the border. But under pressure from Congressional Republicans, the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] recently issued an accounting of terrorist infiltration.
In a report published last week, the news site wrote that “individuals, either known or ‘reasonably suspected’ to be previously involved in terrorism, are now part of a federal terror watchlist identified in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). The Biden administration had previously refused to publicly reveal updates on TSDB encounters at the border, citing ‘law enforcement sensitive’ concerns…The percentage of total encounters in the current fiscal year has more than doubled compared to a year earlier.”
Bearing in mind that it took only 19 terrorists on 9/11 to kill some 3,000 innocent Americans, it’s a scary notion that the U.S. Border Patrol has “encountered” 27 individuals at the border considered to be potential terrorists. In addition, the DHS admits that many more are likely to have evaded the Border Patrol and are currently in the country.
More important than the 27 could-be terrorists who were caught at the border, according to the Border Patrol, is the massive numbers of illegals who got away and who are in the U.S. hiding in plain sight among us. Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, admitted to Congress just a few weeks ago that more than 389,000 of them eluded capture in the Fiscal Year 2021 [October 2020 to September 2021] during the bulk of President Biden’s tenure. Mayorkas went on to admit that Mr. Biden’s plan to do away with President Trump’s Title 42 public health order – which gave the Border Patrol the ability to stop particularly dodgy migrants from entering the U.S. is likely to increase the numbers of migrants who get away.
In a March letter from James Comer [R-KY], Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight & Reform, and John Katko [R–NY], Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas no longer refuse “to publicly release statistics on the individuals [the Border Patrol] apprehends who have derogatory information in the TSDB.” They told Mayorkas that “labeling such information – including the mere count of those apprehended – ‘law enforcement sensitive’ [is unacceptable]. The American people deserve to know this information and the realities of the security situation we face at our broken borders, especially where terrorists attempt to gain entry to our country…In addition to the thousands of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol every day, over a thousand aliens per day are entering the country and avoiding apprehension altogether, continuing their journey into the interior of the country without background checks. These individuals could include terrorists.”
The former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, Rodney Scott, when he was replaced by the DHS, warned his agents in a farewell address that their job is much more than policing illegal migrants. “I firmly believe that it is a national security crisis. Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it’s just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border – to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That’s a real threat.”
The Washington Examiner, at the time of Scott was replaced, noted that his departure was “completely driven by politics.” Scott, himself, posted online the message that he had “received my 3R letter today. For those not familiar, that is Federal government slang for the letter issued to [Senior Executive Service] level employees informing them of a directed reassignment. The recipient has 3 options- relocate, resign, or retire. No rationale or reason is required, nor is it disciplinary…Just a simple needs-of-the-service directed reassignment so the new administration can place the person they want in the position.”