Terrorists Are Crossing the Border, But Relax: 'Experts' Say It's Nothing to Worry About

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/04/12/terrorists-are-crossing-the-border-but-relax-experts-say-its-nothing-to-worry-about-n1686699;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

We’re used to seeing the establishment media cheerlead for Democrat administrations, but Bloomberg went above and beyond on Wednesday with an article that was condescendingly entitled “Terrorists Crossing the US Border? Rising Encounters Explained.” Gather round, you rubes, and let your moral and intellectual superiors explain away what your lying eyes are showing you! “Skyrocketing terrorist watch list hits at US borders are fueling fear and condemnation of Biden immigration policies,” the Bloomberg article said, but don’t worry: there isn’t any reason to lose confidence in Old Joe and his henchmen: “border buffs dispute whether the numbers indicate a serious threat.” Oh, well then!

When the media starts running spurious explainers of this kind, it’s a sign that they’re feeling the heat. People are noticing how terrorists are taking advantage of the Biden regime’s nonexistent Southern border, and so the “experts” must be called in to reassure everyone that the Left has things completely under control.

First, Bloomberg gives us the bad news: “The US Border Patrol reported almost 100 encounters last fiscal year of people whose names appeared on the federal government’s official list of known or suspected terrorists and their associates, up from 16 the previous year.” And those bad old patriots are pouncing, as they do: “The watch list hits represent a tiny percentage of overall encounters of people trying to cross the border without authorization but provide powerful ammunition for President Joe Biden’s critics, who say the administration’s policies have created a chaos at the border and undermined national security.”

But then Bloomberg gives us the good news: sensible people, that is, Leftists, know there is nothing to worry about: “The Department of Homeland Security maintains that the rise in terrorist watch list hits simply corresponds to the overall increase in border crossings and each encounter doesn’t actually represent a terrorist attempting to enter the US. Many immigration and national security specialists have concurred, cautioning the American public and elected officials against reading too much into the data.”

Got it? People on terror watch lists crossing the border don’t actually represent terrorists attempting to enter the country! Bloomberg doesn’t bother to explain what they actually do represent. Instead, they trot out “former DHS official Tom Warrick, now at the Atlantic Council,” who tells us reassuringly: “There is no particular reason to fear that the numbers directly translate into an increased security threat.” Not directly!

Bloomberg also quoted Stewart Baker, a senior DHS official during the George W. Bush administration, saying that “the worst possible interpretation: people who are watching this, al-Qaeda for example, saying, ‘Well, what better way to get our people in, send them across the border.’” But he immediately dismissed that possibility. Bloomberg added: “Many individuals on the terrorist watch list may not present actual threats, but DHS doesn’t release enough data to say for sure, Baker said. The agency doesn’t publish information about watch list encounters’ countries of origin or what happened after agents apprehended them.”

Related: Democrats Boycott Border Control Hearing After Accusing Republicans of Using It to Attack Biden

Meanwhile, no matter what these media-anointed experts are saying, there are all kinds of other threats that are directly increasing. Last Wednesday, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz tweeted some figures showing just how bad the border area has become:

– 10,070 Apprehensions
– 52 lbs. of Fentanyl
– 38 lbs. of Ecstasy
– 11 lbs. of Meth
– 11 lbs. of Cocaine
– $48,000 Seized
– 20 Firearms
– 5 Stolen Vehicles Recovered
– 5 Sex Offenders
– 4 Warrants
– 1 Gang Member

Significant numbers for just 2 days!

This was just an ordinary couple of days at the border, and Ortiz doesn’t even mention the terrorists. Fox News reported last October that “the number of migrant encounters at the U.S. southern border climbed to a record more than 227,000 during the month of September and more than 2.3 million for the fiscal year 2022, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” That data also shows that “there were 20 known or suspected terrorists arrested at the southern border in September, bringing the total terror watchlist arrests at the border for the fiscal year 2022 to 98. The number of terror watchlist arrests at the border for the last five years combined was 26.”

What did Old Joe and his handlers say about this? Nothing, of course, because they weren’t challenged by the sycophantic Leftist propagandists we call “journalists.” They could count on the likes of Bloomberg and its “experts” to clean up after them.