A report released by US Customs and Border Protection stated that Border Patrol agents placed 10 people in custody who were on the US terror watch list in July.
The report also noted that agents captured 66 people in 2022 who were on the Terrorist Screening Dataset out of 1.8 million interactions with illegal boarder crossers, Fox News reported. The number represents a massive increase from 2021.
"Encounters of watchlisted individuals at our borders are very uncommon, underscoring the critical work CBP Agents and Officers carry out every day on the frontlines," said the report. But it noted that encounters with individuals on the terror list have dramatically increased in 2022.
The figure of 66 watchlisted people placed in custody at the boarder is double that of 2021. In 2017, such encounters were relatively unheard of, with only two taking place. The year 2021 was the beginning of the significant increase in encounters, jumping from three the previous year to 15.
The uptick in the arrest of terror list suspects at the boarder correlated to the overall increase in boarder crossings, the report found.