Report: Since 2021, thousands of 'special interest aliens' from Middle East stopped at U.S. border

NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive

In the wake of the recent heinous attacks by Hamas terrorists on innocent Israeli citizens, we now learn that for over two years, thousands of "special interest" migrants have been stopped at the U.S.'s southern border, many from the Middle East.

Fox News reported on Tuesday,"Thousands of 'special interest aliens' from countries, including in the Middle East, have been arrested by Border Patrol agents attempting to cross the U.S. southern border illegally over the last two years, internal Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data leaked to Fox News show."

"Special Interest aliens are people from countries identified by the U.S. government as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat to the U.S," the report continued (emphasis added).

The breakdown of Middle East aliens according to the report: "That data, confirmed by multiple CBP sources and which reflects apprehensions between ports of entry between Oct. 2021 and Oct. 2023, shows that agents encountered 6,386 nationals from Afghanistan in that period, as well as 3,153 from Egypt, 659 from Iran and 538 from Syria."

There were more from other Middle Eastern countries as well.

That's a sizable number of Middle Easterners traveling all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and more only to try to sneak into the United States illegally at the southern border.

As if the U.S. Border Patrol didn't have enough problems trying to manage our broken borders that the Biden administration refuses to lift a finger to fix, they also have to worry about potential terrorists.

It's a particularly difficult job, or as the report notes, "Border Patrol sources tell Fox they have extreme concerns about the people coming across from special interest countries, given they have little to no ways to vet them -- unless they have committed a crime in the U.S. or are on a federal watchlist, agents have no way of knowing their criminal history as their countries do not share data with the U.S. and so there is nothing to match their name against when they run their fingerprints."

So Border Patrol and U.S. law enforcement are largely flying blind in efforts to prevent potential threats to national security as it relates to Middle Eastern migrants at our southern border.

We need to fix our broken border, including having a better handle on who is and isn't entering the U.S. for many reasons, not the least of which is our own safety.

But don't expect this president to do a thing.