FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a House subcommittee meeting that discussing the number of individuals on the terror watchlist crossing the border is “not in my lane.”
House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Committee member Mark Green (R-TN) asked Wray, “Why do you think in the four years before this, there were only 11? And suddenly, there are 294 in the past few years, why do you think that?”
“I can’t really speak to, you know, to that issue,” Wray responded. “it’s not in my lane.”
“I can tell you that the threats that come from the other side of the border are very much consuming all 56 of our field offices, not just in border states,” the FBI director stated.
Question on individuals on the terror watchlist crossing the border: “In four years before this, there were only 11 and suddenly there are 294 in the past few years, why?”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 15, 2023
Chris Wray: “I can’t really speak to that issue. It’s not in my lane.”
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American Faith reported last month that officials warned that terror-linked individuals were entering the United States from the southern border.
San Diego Field Office Intelligence Division of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials stated that members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah may be encountered by border agents.
According to the memo obtained by The Daily Caller, “San Diego Field Office Intelligence Unit assesses that individuals inspired by, or reacting to the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.”
“Foreign fighters motivated by ideology or mercenary soldiers of fortune may attempt to obfuscate travel to or from the US to or from countries in the Middle East through Mexico,” it reads.
between October 2022 and August 2023, 151 illegal immigrants on the terror watchlist were apprehended at the southern border.
In fiscal year 2022, 98 individuals on the terrorism watchlist were captured.
By comparison, zero terrorism watchlist identities were arrested on the Southwest Border in fiscal year 2019, according to CBP data.
