Federal law enforcement at the nation’s borders is on track to stop nearly 20 times as many people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list this year than it did in any year during the Biden administration, according to a Washington Examiner investigation.U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, is on track to encounter more than 12,000 known or suspected terrorists along the border with Canada and Mexico, including at ports of entry where vehicles cross and between the ports where migrants attempt to enter illegally.Current and former government officials, as well as immigration analysts, do not believe this phenomenon is the result of an increased threat from terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State or al Qaeda. Rather, they agreed that President Donald Trump’s classification of at least 16 Western Hemisphere cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations in his second term is the reason the number of potential terrorists caught at the border has surged over the past year and a half.
DHS agreed with the views of those experts.“By properly identifying these groups as foreign terrorist organizations and having operational control of the border, CBP has recorded a significant increase in terrorism-related encounters at the border,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in an email.What the data show
