Thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Central Asia have been apprehended attempting to cross the U.S. southern border under the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data obtained by Fox News.
According to the data, “special interest aliens” from Afghanistan (6,386), Egypt (3,153), Iran (659), Syria (538), Uzbekistan (12,264), Turkey (30,830), Pakistan (1,163), Lebanon (164), Jordan (185), Iraq (123), and Mauritania (15,594) were encountered from October 2021 to October 2023.
While special interest aliens are not necessarily terrorists, the Department of Homeland Security has said that these individuals could pose “a national security risk to the United States or its interests.”
“Often such individuals or groups are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism. DHS analysis includes an examination of travel patterns, points of origin, and/or travel segments that are tied to current assessments of national and international threat environments,” DHS explained back in 2019.
The numbers do not include illegal immigrants who entered at ports of entry or any of the estimated 1.5 million “gotaways” who have made it into the U.S. under President Joe Biden.
Earlier this year, it was reported that a smuggler connected to ISIS was helping to sneak in over a dozen people from Uzbekistan into the U.S. The Uzbek nationals were reportedly released into the American interior by the Biden administration after arriving at the southern border seeking asylum.
The individuals were reportedly screened for any “red flags,” but it wasn’t until after their release that the FBI discovered a smuggling ring operating out of Uzbekistan in cooperation with one Turkish smuggler who has worked with ISIS.
DHS reported earlier this year that the number of individuals arrested at the border on the terrorists watchlist had increased in fiscal year 2023 from fiscal year 2022, and had reached 160 individuals by July 2023. For fiscal year 2022, the number apprehended was just 100. DHS said that the increase was due to the jump in people crossing the border, which has hit record levels under Biden.
“The increase in encounters of individuals on the terror screening data set are largely commensurate with the increased flow to the border more broadly,” a DHS official said in September. “Naturally, as we see more people arrive at the border from different countries, we are more likely going to see an increase in individuals who might be on the watchlist or directly related to terror activity.”
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