Oh, they most certainly do not. Asked by Fox's Neil Cavuto about the intersection of the out-of-control border crisis and the increased threat of terrorism -- recently confirmed by the FBI Director -- the Biden administration's National Security Council spokesperson summoned forceful-seeming language in order to reassure concerned Americans. The government has been working "very, very stringently" to "minimize any threat of terrorism coming through our borders," Kirby said. They have not, and the image he paints is misleading and naive.
Here's the clip:
Biden spokesman John Kirby claims they are working "very, very stringently" to "minimize any threat of terrorism coming through our borders."
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 6, 2023
More individuals on the terror watchlist illegally entered the U.S. in FY2023 than the past six years combined. pic.twitter.com/lcP3qabr0w
The RNC correctly notes that more people on the terrorism watchlist were apprehended at the US border over the last year than in the previous six years combined. That's a fact. But it's not the most concerning fact. As I pointed out on Outnumbered, in just-completed Fiscal Year 2023, US officials made nearly 2.5 million encounters at the US-Mexico border, a stunning new record. Among those were tens of thousands of known criminals, felons, gang members and, yes, dozens of suspected terrorists. But those only represent the public safety threats who were dumb or unlucky enough to get caught. Many 'high value' would-be illegal immigrants pay the cartels a premium to avoid capture. Most people within the endless waves of illegal arrivals want to get 'encountered,' processed and released. That's the incentive. Others, by contrast, want to evade getting caught. And they have their reasons.
In FY 2023, US officials tabulated more than 600,000 known got-aways, not counting an unknowably large group of got-aways who weren't picked up on cameras, censors, etc. That's about 50,000 known got-aways per month, every month. The US government has no idea who these people are, or where they are. There is nothing "stringent" about this. A border porous enough to allow 600,000-plus got-aways in a single year is, effectively, an open border. Team Biden has created a situation in which an unknown number of potentially highly dangerous people have taken advantage of their disastrously lax immigration policies and are now living inside the United States. God forbid something horrific happens; there will be hell to pay. I'll leave you with a reality check on a New York Times op/ed attempting to equate Biden's border performance with Trump's:
In the two years before Mr. Biden took office, the Trump administration released nearly 713,000 immigrants, or a little over 52 percent of the 1.4 million crossers. In other words, Mr. Trump’s policies resulted in far fewer removals in absolute terms and a slightly higher percentage of released border crossers than Mr. Biden’s.
For reference, the Biden administration released more than 900,000 illegal immigrants into the country last year alone, just counting the Border Patrol stats, and excluding others. Yes, 713,000 over two years is too many, but it's dwarfed by Biden's failures. Another point of reference: In fiscal year 2018, when Trump was president, there were just under 400,000 encounters at the Southern border. This past year, under Biden, that number was almost 2.5 million. The got-aways number this year was hundreds of thousands of people higher than all the encounters in FY 2018. There simply is no comparison or equivalence here, whatsoever. This is Biden's catastrophe, full stop. I'll leave you with this:
AZ: I have come across piles of discarded documents— It happens for multiple reasons— Whether it’s proof they were safe in another country… Or it’s proof they come from a country that is not friendly to the U.S. (special interest country)… Or they aren’t good people and their… pic.twitter.com/S1X5okmtiV
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) November 5, 2023
