Since Joe Biden first came to power in January of 2021, the number of illegal aliens on the terrorist screening list who have been encountered on American soil by border authorities has increased ninefold.
As reported by Just The News, the fiscal year 2023 has seen the apprehensions of at least 140 suspects from the terror list, far greater than the previous total of 98 in fiscal year 2022. In 2020, the final year of President Donald Trump’s first term, the number was just three. In fiscal year 2021, Biden’s first year in office, the number increased exponentially to 16.
Numerous border experts have warned that this rising trend is an indication that terrorist groups see the southern border as a tactical weakness through which the United States can be infiltrated, leading to the increased possibility of terror attacks on American soil.
“This un-secure border, it’s not simply a threat from possible criminals and others in South America,” said Fred Fleitz, former Chief of Staff to the Trump Administration’s National Security Council, who currently serves as Vice Chairman of the America First Policy Institute. “There are people from a variety of countries, not just China, who I think are sneaking in.”
“We literally could have the next terrorist sleeper cell in the United States planning a terrorist attack, and we would have no idea,” said former Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan.
In addition to the confirmed encounters, there have been at least 1.5 million illegals who successfully crossed the border without ever encountering law enforcement and thus snuck into the country completely undetected; such illegals are known as “gotaways,” and the number of additional terror suspects who have entered the country as gotaways remains unknown.
“These ‘known gotaways’ do not provide biometric or biographic information to USBP agents and continue their journey into the interior of the country without background checks against law enforcement databases,” said Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), James Comer (R-Ky.), and Mark Green (R-Tenn.) in a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “Terrorists and other bad actors will attempt to exploit weaknesses in border security and vetting procedures to infiltrate the United States. We fear these known gotaways could also include illegal aliens with terrorist ties.”