At least 193 suspected of being involved in terrorism have crossed the Southern border

The Biden administration has overwhelmed our asylum system by releasing more than a million illegal border crossers into the country to apply for asylum. As of the end of January 2023, the immigration court had a backlog of 2,097,244 cases, and a major increase in illegal crossings is expected in May when the Title 42 order is terminated.

This isn’t just a problem for our asylum system: It also presents national security issues.

For instance, the Border Patrol is apprehending more illegal crossers who are on the terrorist watchlist, which has information about people suspected of being involved in terrorism or related activities.  

INA section 212(a)(3) makes a migrant inadmissible if there is a reasonable ground to believe that he or she has engaged in — or is likely to engage in — terrorist activity. This may not apply to every migrant found to be on the watchlist.

Alex Nowrasteh, a CATO Institute policy scholar, thinks that politicians are inflating the risk that terrorists will enter the U.S. by making an illegal entry across the Southwest border. He claims that zero people have been killed or injured in the U.S. by terrorists who crossed the Southwest border illegally.

Sept. 11, 2001, proved that foreign terrorists can be very resourceful, and there has been a substantial increase in attempts to cross the Southwest border illegally by migrants the government suspects of being involved in terrorism or related activities.

Increase in illegal crossers on the watchlist

The Border Patrol apprehended 11 illegal border crossers who were on the watchlist during the four years of the previous administration. That number rose to 15 in fiscal 2021, which was the first fiscal year of the current administration. It reached 98 in 2022, and it has reached 80 already in the first months of fiscal 2023.  

Before Sept. 11, the intelligence community was very focused on foreign threats, not on domestic threats. Moreover, there were several different terrorism watchlists, which made it difficult to share information. The Terrorist Screening Center has consolidated watchlist data into a single federal terrorism watchlist.

Does the Border Patrol always check the watchlist?

The DHS Inspector General (IG) did an audit on the Border Patrol to determine the extent to which it screens illegal crossers to prevent criminals, drug traffickers, and individuals on the terrorist watchlist from entering the United States.

On Sept. 19, 2022, the IG issued a report in which he observes that Border Patrol agents collect biographic and biometric information, such as photos and fingerprints, and then upload the info to the e3 Portal, which compares the uploaded information with the data in Federal law enforcement databanks to determine, among other things, whether the migrant in question is on the terrorist watchlist.

The IG’s audit was based on a statistical sample of records for 384 illegal crossers that agents had apprehended between April 2021 and September 2021. However, the sample was actually smaller than 384 migrants because 112 of them were younger than 14 and record checks are not required for migrants who are that young.

The IG found that agents did conduct the required record checks on the migrants in the sample and verified that the databanks did not reveal derogatory information on migrants in the sample who were released.

The IG also found, however, that the agents didn’t always document the screening procedures they performed, and they expedited record processing to move migrants out of processing centers that were exceeding capacity limits. For instance, Border Patrol headquarters directed agents to reduce processing times by not assigning A-numbers to all of the migrants when these were near capacity.

The agents are supposed assign an A-number to each migrant during processing. The A-number is used by immigration and law enforcement officials to track and locate a migrant’s A-File for a complete history of immigration encounters. The Border Patrol did not issue A-numbers to 107 of the 384 migrants in the sample.

What else will they have to skip when Title 42 is terminated and there is a major surge in illegal crossings?

DHS is preparing for multiple possibilities, including projections of between 9,000 to 14,000 migrants a day, more than double the current number of illegal crossings, which could overwhelm already strained resources.

The IG also found that the Border Patrol did not have a formal policy on how to expedite processing when the processing centers got too crowded. They need such a policy to facilitate proper documentation of screening procedures and adequate tracking of the migrants who are released into the United States.

Illegal crossers who aren’t checked at all

According to border security expert, Todd Bensman, the crucial question is, ‘How many migrants on the watchlist got through to the interior of the United States among the gotaways?’ Gotaways are illegal crossers who were detected but not apprehended. The Border Patrol has confirmed that 1.2 million illegal migrants “got away” from authorities while crossing the border under current administration. 

And no one knows how many migrants have succeeded in making an illegal crossing without being detected.

Is another Sept. 11 more likely if migrants the government suspects of being involved in terrorism or related activities continue to cross the border among large numbers of illegal crossers who claim to be asylum seekers?

I think it is.

As Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) said recently at a congressional hearing, “You don’t need that many terrorists to enter the country to cause spectacular harm.”

The Sept. 11 attack only took 19 terrorists, and it killed 2,977 people. This is more than the 2,400 people who were killed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, which led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ask Congress to declare war on Japan.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at: https://nolanhillop-eds.blogspot.com