According to federal data released recently, Border Patrol agents at the Canadian and Mexican border have stopped 127 noncitizens on the FBI terror watchlist from entering the United States illegally.

The numbers published on Tuesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed that the number of terror watchlist apprehensions during the eight-month period between October 2022 and may 2023 was higher than the 98 arrests made over a 12-month period last year, which had been the highest in the past four years.

The 98 in 2020 and the 127 so far this year are major increases from zero in 2019, when the U.S.-Mexico border was facing a smaller scale humanitarian and national safety crisis.

Border Patrol arrested more than 170,000 people in May for illegally entering the country by going around ports of entry.

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CBP does NOT disclose the nationalities or affiliations of those immigrants whose names appear on the terror watchlist. The FBI database contains known and suspected terrorists and their family members and affiliates who may not be involved in terrorism.

The Washington Examiner received unpublished data in August from the Department of Homeland Security, which showed how the government tracked immigrants with terrorist ties internally.

The data showed that 25 of 27 terrorists known or suspected by Border Patrol in the first half of 2022 were Colombian citizens, and not from countries in the Eastern Hemisphere where terrorist groups like al Qaeda, Islamic State, etc. are based.

Alex Nowrasteh, immigration analyst at Cato Institute Washington, noted that certain Colombians listed on the watchlist may not be true terrorist threats.

Nowrasteh stated that it is possible the Colombians arrested were members of the FARC, or United Self Defense Forces of Colombia. Both groups have been delisted by the State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, but the names of the individuals are still on the TSDS, and they have not been purged.

The State Department has listed two Colombian groups, the Segunda Marquetalia (also known as FARC-EP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), as terrorist foreign organizations.

The dramatic change in demographics of immigrants trying to enter America through the southern border coincides with the spike in terrorist-related arrests in the last two years.

CBP data dating back to 2007 shows that Mexicans accounted for 90% of all arrests in 2007. In 2019, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras immigrants accounted for more than 70% all arrests. CBP data shows that in 2021, immigrants who were not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle accounted for 1.1 million out of 3.4 million arrests. This is 32%.

The FBI has determined that 337 non-citizens have sought admission at air, land, and sea ports in the United States. This is a much higher number than the Border Patrol’s 127.

In August 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate that terrorists are looking to exploit any “vulnerability” they can find.

Border Patrol agents have been pulled out of the field in order to deal with the large number of illegal immigrants who crossed the border during the last two years. This has left a gap that immigrants exploited for entry into the U.S.