By the Numbers: There IS a Terrorism Threat at the Border

In 2017, the U.S. Border Patrol had two encounters with people flagged in the terror watchlist. In 2023 — 169. Thus far in 2024 — 93.

Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash.

In 2017, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered only two individuals at the Southwest border “with records within the TSDS at the time of their encounter.”

“The Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) — also known as the ‘watchlist’ — is the U.S. government’s database that contains sensitive information on terrorist identities,” explains the agency. “The TSDS originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”

In 2018, the number of border patrol encounters with TSDS record-holders climbed to 6. There were zero such reported encounters in 2019; there were three reported in 2020.

In 2021, 15 people with TSDS flags were intercepted at the U.S. Southwest border by customs and immigration enforcement officials.

Then, in 2022, something dreadful started happening at the U.S. southern border. U.S. customs and border patrol agents logged 98 encounters with suspects on the terrorist watchlist…