(DCWatchdog.com) – More alarming news is coming from the Southern Border, as leaked US government documents have just revealed that in the past 15 months alone, the federal authorities set loose inside the nation over 30,000 illegal immigrants considered to be national security risks.
This information comes from internal data of the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) acquired by The Daily Caller.
Thus, in the fiscal year 2023, the Border Patrol registered 20,287 Special Interest Aliens (SIAs) at the Southern Border.
So far, in fiscal year 2024, there have been a total of 12,114 such illegal immigrants.
These individuals were all given future court dates.
The number of encounters with SIAs has seen a significant increase: there is a 600% jump from the fiscal year 2021, which had 3,675 case, to the fiscal year 2022, which saw 25,627 ones, based on the internal CBP data obtained by The Caller.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) classifies individuals as SIAs if they frequently travel to areas known for terrorism or other forms of “nefarious activity.”
This category can also include individuals who “possibly have a nexus to terrorism,” according to a DHS fact sheet from 2019.
For the fiscal year 2023, the most encountered nationalities among SIAs were from Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Since the beginning of fiscal year 2024 in October, the leading nationalities have been Turkey, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Russia.
A DHS official expressed a range of emotions to the DCNF regarding the recent surge in SIA encounters.
“Even I was surprised. It worries me, depresses me, infuriates me, frustrates me,” the unnamed official said.
The news outlet also found evidence of Turkish smugglers operating profitable smuggling rings through Telegram.
These include helping SIAs reach and cross the US-Mexican border, as shown in a review of Telegram and TikTok posts.
In the fiscal year 2023, Border Patrol arrested 172 people listed on the terrorist watchlist trying to enter the United States illegally.
From October through December, another 50 migrants flagged on the terrorist watchlist were nabbed by US authorities, according to federal data.
Additionally, there were 98 encounters in fiscal year 2022 and 16 in fiscal year 2021 with individuals on the terror watch list.
