Ten individuals on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Database were arrested by Customs and Border Protection in July, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported Tuesday.
Melugin reported that this figure, which is in CBP’s monthly operational report, grows to 66 when looking at how many people on the list were caught at the border in fiscal year 2022 alone. It is an increase of 26 people from the database, which was in 2017, 2021 and 2021. The fiscal year 2021 saw 16 arrests.
NEW: CBP reports 10 people on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) were arrested by Border Patrol at Southern border in July.
There have now been 66 TSDB hits so far in FY’22.
That’s more than double the previous 5 years combined.
FY’17-FY’21 TSDB hits: 26@FoxNews
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 16, 2022
Such data is a testament to the importance of having a secure border. The numbers do not reflect all the people authorites have reached. There are still August and September in the fiscal year, but migrant encounters at border have already exceeded the prior year by 159.993, with 1,822,160 encounters. Although some of the encounters are repeats, it’s still a significant number regardless of who spins it.
“This marks the second month in a row of decreased encounters along the Southwest border. While the encounter numbers remain high, this is a positive trend and the first two-month drop since October 2021,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in the press release.
“In May, CBP launched a digital advertising campaign to dissuade irregular migration by targeting the lies smugglers use to lure the vulnerable into a dangerous journey that often ends in removal or death. That danger was highlighted in the recent takedown of a deadly human smuggling network based in Guatemala responsible for the death of a Guatemalan woman who died in Texas in April 2021. These are among many actions we are taking to reduce irregular migration and dismantle the human smuggling operations that put these migrants in danger.”
State governments have tried their best to take matters into their own hands to close gaps, but it still remains a responsbility of the federal government to protect it’s soverign border. Leaders in Arizona and Texas should continue to think creatively about how to reduce the flow of migrants. Resources are likely to be limited.
Yet, CBP officers and other local police officers work hard every day, making it important that they are safe. Amerians should show them the greatest respect as every day presents its own risks.