The number of individuals on the terror watchlist stopped at ports of entry during the fiscal year to date edged past the number stopped in all of 2022 as U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported a 42 percent plummet in the overall number of people stopped by Border Patrol between border crossings.
In April’s statistics, CBP reported 211,401 overall encounters along the southwest border, up 10 percent from 191,956 in March. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 public health order, which allowed the rapid expulsion of migrants who crossed at U.S. land borders in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19, expired May 11 at 11:59 p.m. CBP reverted to enforcing immigration admissibility using Title 8.
The Department of Homeland Security was bracing for an expected surge of migrants at the southwest border afterward with a new rule on asylum, additional personnel deployed to the region, support extended to communities affected, collaboration with other Western Hemisphere nations, and new messaging to deter migrants from believing or using the services of smugglers.
June offered the first full-month look at border flows since the end of Title 42. The Border Patrol recorded 99,545 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border — down 42 percent from May. Total encounters with CBP on the southwest border in June, which includes individuals who presented themselves at ports of entry with or without a CBP One appointment, were 144,607, a 30 percent drop from May.
CBP emphasized that there are the lowest monthly southwest border encounter numbers since February 2021.
“Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant,” Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. “As our June statistics show, CBP’s mission is vast, and thanks to the dedication of our personnel and Federal partners, we are delivering results that keep the American people safe: ensuring border security, seizing drugs, stopping the flow of illicit weapons, rescuing people in distress, facilitating lawful travel and trade, and stopping the entry of harmful agricultural pests.”
The use of the CBP One app, which allows travelers and stakeholders to access CBP mobile applications and services, was expanded in January to let migrants approaching the southwest border make an appointment at a point of entry to seek an exemption to the CDC’s Title 42 public health order. Through the app, they can submit certain biographic and biometric information to CBP and make an appointment up to 14 days in advance at the ports of entry in Nogales, Brownsville, Eagle Pass, Hidalgo, Laredo, El Paso, Calexico or San Ysidro. At the beginning of this month, CBP announced the expansion of CBP One appointments to 1,450 per day, up from 1,250 per day.
CBP said that the app “remains a key component of DHS efforts to incentivize migrants to use lawful and orderly processes and disincentivize attempts at crossing between ports of entry.” More than 38,000 people who made appointments through CBP One were processed at points of entry in June; since the app’s introduction at the beginning of the year, more than 170,000 people have used it to make their border appointments.
The top nationalities who have used the app to schedule appointments are Haitian, Mexican, and Venezuelan, the agency said.
CBP has encountered 382 individuals on the terror watchlist at ports of entry since the beginning of the current fiscal year and 143 between ports of entry, according to updated statistics.
The Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) originally consisted of known or suspected terrorists but has expanded over the years to include individuals such as affiliates of watchlisted people or members of Transnational Criminal Organizations.
This fiscal year to date, 321 TSDS individuals have presented themselves at a port of entry on the northern border of the United States and 61 have done so at the southern border. Fiscal year 2023 began on Oct. 1, 2022, and ends on Sept. 30; for the entirety of fiscal year 2022, 313 TSDS individuals were stopped at a northern border port of entry and 67 on the southern border.
So far in FY2023, Border Patrol agents have encountered 140 TSDS individuals between ports of entry on the southern border and three on the northern border. In fiscal year 2022, 98 TSDS individuals were stopped by Border Patrol between ports of entry — all on the southern border. In fiscal year 2021, 16 TSDS individuals were stopped between ports of entry at both borders.
TSDS encounters represent 0.0094 percent of all CBP encounters this fiscal year to date, compared to 0.0044 percent in FY2022.
