Border Patrol breaks record for terrorist arrests at southern border

Arrests of foreign terrorists at the southern border hit a record high. Adding the data recorded in May, Border Patrol (CBP) apprehended 125 individuals at the southern border who had an arrest warrant or were on FBI watch lists.

That watch list is the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS), "a U.S. Government database containing sensitive information about terrorist identities." "The TSDS originated as the Consolidated Terrorist Watch List to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), but has evolved over the past decade to include other individuals who pose a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watch-listed individuals," CBP explains on its website.

In the past fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2021 and ended on September 30, 2022, border agents managed to arrest 98 terrorists. With four months remaining in the current fiscal year, 27 more arrests have already been made. During FY2021, 15 terrorists were arrested, while only three were arrested in FY2020. In 2019 there were no arrests, compared to six in 2018 six and two in 2017.

On the other hand, at the northern border, Border Patrol has only arrested two terrorists since FY2023 started on October 1, 2022. This figure has not changed from April to May.

OFO numbers

Border Patrol is not the only agency that acts against terrorists at checkpoints. So far in FY2023, Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations (OFO) has apprehended 53 individuals with terrorism warrants on the southern border and 284 on the northern border, for a total of 337.

Despite being a very high figure and with four months to go until the end of the 2023 period, it doesn't seem likely that the OFO will beat its own record, which dates back to FY2019 when the federal office arrested 538 terrorists.