Four people whose names are on the federal government’s terror watchlist reportedly were recently arrested while trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico.
Customs and Border Protection briefed Congress on the intelligence matter Tuesday and said four matches to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database have been made since October, Axios reported. The briefing runs in line with statements from several House Republicans, who said during a border tour in Texas Monday that federal agents were encountering people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.
The four matches in the first six months of fiscal 2021 represent a greater number than the average total seen in recent years. Although several thousand people are denied entry to the U.S. at airports each year as a result of being on the list, it is unusual for people to be encountered trying to get into the U.S. between land border crossings. The four matches are citizens of Serbia and Yemen.
The development comes in the midst of surging migration to the southern border, where tens of thousands of families and children without parents are arriving each month. All non-Mexican children are being taken into custody and released into the U.S., and most families are also being released into the interior of the country.
The surge of migrants from mostly Central American countries has prompted Border Patrol to pull some of its 20,000 agents from remote areas to help transport, process, and care for people in custody, meaning fewer agents are able to patrol for threats such as drug smuggling and criminals attempting to get into the U.S. Oftentimes, smugglers send over large groups of families and children to divert agents to one area then run other contraband or people over the border where agents are not present.
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House Homeland Security Committee ranking member John Katko, a former federal prosecutor who worked in El Paso, said the international cartels are “masterfully” exploiting the border due to an easing of Trump-era border restrictions that prevented people from seeking asylum at the border and barred anyone from being released into the U.S.
“People they’ve caught in the last few days [in Border Patrol’s El Paso sector] have been under the terror watchlist,” Katko said during a trip to the border Monday. “Individuals that they have on the watchlist for terrorism are now starting to exploit the southern border.”
Border Patrol does not disclose the identities or affiliations of adults its agents arrest at the border, and it has historically arrested people from more than 90 countries each year.
The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center maintains the Terrorist Screening Database. A national security agency must nominate someone who it believes is a perceived threat. Then, the National Counterterrorism Center determines if the information on a nominee is credible. Someone who poses a legitimate threat may be planning or have carried out an act of terrorism “with respect to an aircraft, the homeland, U.S. facilities or interests abroad, or is a threat of engaging in or conducting a violent act of terrorism and is operationally capable of doing so,” the FBI criteria state.
The nomination is passed on to the Terrorism Screening Center, which then reviews it and makes the final decision on whether to add that person to the terror watchlist.
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CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
