April 20 marked Joe Biden's 29th month in office. During this time, there is one issue that has caused great concern among Americans and that is illegal immigration. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has acknowledged that "the entire immigration system is broken." With this president, more than five million immigrants have entered the United States illegally, by any means of transportation and across all of its borders. It is even more worrying that drug traffickers or terrorists are slipping in among them.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has arrested 82 illegal aliens considered terrorists so far this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2022. This figure is close to the total number of arrests in FY 2022 when 98 illegal immigrants wanted by law enforcement for terrorism were arrested.
There are still five months to go before the end of FY 2023. In these first seven months, there have been an average of 12 terrorist arrests per month on both the southern and northern borders. There have been significantly more arrests at the Mexican border, accounting for 80 of the 82 arrests made so far. The other two were on the Canadian border.
Since the Biden Administration took office on January 20, 2021, the number of terrorist arrests at the borders has risen to 196. In this fiscal year, there have been 82. In FY 2022 there were 98 and in FY 2021 there were 16.
Arrests of illegal aliens wanted by law enforcement or with criminal convictions
In addition to arrests of illegal aliens wanted for terrorism, CBP also tracks encounters with aliens who have criminal convictions or are wanted by law enforcement.
In the first seven months of FY 2023, Border Patrol agents have arrested 5,193 irregular aliens with criminal convictions or who are wanted. CBP breaks down these arrests according to the crime for which each illegal immigrant is wanted or has been convicted:
- Assault, battery or domestic violence: 493 arrests.
- Robbery, theft or fraud: 366 arrests.
- Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs: 792 arrests.
- Homicide or manslaughter: 12 arrests.
- Possession of drugs or drug trafficking: 888 arrests.
- Illegal entry: 2,999 arrests.
- Trafficking or possession of illegal weapons: 146 arrests.
- Sex crimes: 129 arrests.
- Others: 1,223 arrests.
In FY 2022, 12,028 illegal immigrants were apprehended because they had a criminal conviction pending or were being prosecuted. In FY 2021, there were 10,763 apprehensions.
