Arrests of terror watch list members skyrocketed at the U.S.-Mexico border from fewer than 10 annually under former President Donald Trump to 98 in 2022 under President Biden.
The spike in arrests looks likely to continue as well, with border authorities already apprehending 38 terror watchlisters in fiscal year 2023, which began October 1. The stat is only the latest border measure to smash records under Biden, who has presided over unprecedented levels of illegal immigration.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data says there were some 36,000 border encounters in February 2020, Biden’s first full month in office. Biden’s most recent full month in office, December 2022, says 251,000 border encounters.
Those statistics don’t tell the full story either, as the CBP has also tracked roughly 1.2 million known “gotaways” since Biden entered office. The CBP defines “gotaways” as migrants border officials could detect but not apprehend.
