As Americans mark the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, President Joe Biden’s administration is overseeing a surge in illegal aliens crossing the United States-Mexico border who are on the government’s “Terrorist Watch List.”
Since October 2022, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has encountered 149 illegal aliens at the nation’s northern and southern borders who were revealed to be listed on the federal government’s Terrorist Watch List.
The overwhelming majority, 146, were encountered at the southern border, while three have been encountered at the northern border. This indicates a 7,350 percent increase in encounters with illegal aliens on the Terrorist Watch List compared to Fiscal Year 2017.
A report from the House Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Mark Green (R-TN), details the surge of encounters with illegal aliens on the Terrorist Watch List.
House Homeland Security Committee
“From FY17 to FY20, between ports of entry along the southwest and northern borders, the Border Patrol apprehended just 14 individuals whose names were on the [Terrorist Watch List], with most of them attempting to enter through the southwest border,” the committee report states:
In comparison, 263 individuals whose names appear on the [Terrorist Watch List] have been apprehended since FY21–259 of them along the southwest border. More than half of these individuals (146) have been apprehended at the southwest border this fiscal year alone, far surpassing the previous record of 98 set in FY22. [Emphasis added]
The committee report also noted that “it is unknown how many additional national security threats have been among the approximately 1.5 million known got-aways that have evaded Border Patrol altogether.”
“After 9/11, we created all these databases so if you want to come to the United States, get a plane ticket or a visa, you gotta go through all this vetting through various databases,” former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan said earlier this year.
“Why would any terrorist put themselves in a position to be vetted through these databases when you can simply get to Mexico, cross the southwest border like 1.3 million others did, and not get arrested?” Homan asked.
At a July hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was unable to state definitively the whereabouts of those Terrorist Watch List illegal aliens who were encountered at the border over the last year.
WATCH: DHS Chief Mayorkas Cannot Say If Illegal Alien Terrorists Have Been Released into American Communities
C-SPANJohn Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
