The number of people encountered by border guards at the southern border between ports of entry is on track to surpass last fiscal year’s record number, according to new data released this week by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). .
Agents stopped 16 people on the FBI’s terror watch list illegally crossing the southern border in February. This brings the total number of encounters for fiscal year 2023 to 69, which is expected to exceed the 98 encounters in the previous fiscal year.
Between fiscal years 2017 and 2020, there were only eight arrests on terror watch lists between ports of entry, followed by 15 encounters in 2021.
BORDER PATROL CHIEF SAYS HE DISAGREE WITH BIDEN’S MOVEMENT TO STOP WALL BUILD
A Border Patrol agent walks through a gap along the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Yuma, Arizona, June 1, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
At ports of entry on the northern and southern borders, CBP’s Office of Field Operations has encountered 214 individuals in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) so far this fiscal year. There were 380 arrests in fiscal 2022, far more than the 157 in fiscal 2021 and 196 in fiscal 2020.
The numbers of those found in the TSDB are only a small number compared to the total number of migrants, which was more than 150,000 in February. But the surge has fueled fears over who might try to enter the United States.
WHITE HOUSE ACCUSES HOUSE REPUBLICANS OF PLAYING “PARTISAN GAMES” WITH TEXAS BORDER FIELD HEARING
Republicans, in particular, have seen the TSDB numbers as a sign that the border needs to be tightened, and have urged the Biden administration to take greater action on the matter.
The numbers were released just hours after Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified before a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in McAllen, Texas, telling lawmakers that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has no operational oversight over has the limit.
The White House has fought back criticism from Republicans, accusing them of failing to approve border funding requests from the Biden administration, including a recent $5 billion request in December. Republicans have said that politics, not funding, is at the root of the crisis.
DHS said the hearing “highlights the important work the Department of Homeland Security does every day to enforce our laws, secure our border, and fight cartels and smugglers,” noting the work it is doing to improve America to make it safer.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Although this administration has inherited a dismantled immigration system and is facing unprecedented migration affecting nations across the Western Hemisphere, it has hurled resources at the border, reduced the number of encounters between ports of entry, disrupted more smuggling operations than ever before, and more banned drugs have been phased out in the last two years than in the previous five years,” a spokesman said.
Source : www.foxnews.com