Customs and Border Protection flagged nearly 75,000 illegal migrants as potential national security risks over a 10-month period ending in August, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported Friday.
The Daily Caller, citing CPB data it had obtained, reported that 74,904 illegal migrants — including Special Interest Aliens (SIA) — were marked for potential risks beginning last October through the end of last month.
CPB defines an SIA as a person who "potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests. Often such individuals or groups are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism."
A CNN report earlier this week said the FBI is searching for more than a dozen Uzbek migrants with ties to ISIS who were released into the U.S.
"So why is it so important to track them down? Because they're freaking special interest aliens that were smuggled in by somebody with connections to terrorism," former acting CPB Commissioner Mark Morgan told the Daily Caller.
"The reason it's so important is twofold. One, they actually were connected to someone who is connected to a terrorist organization and [two], they're special interest aliens," Morgan added.
Citing data, Daily Caller reported CPB encountered 25,627 SIAs in fiscal year 2022 compared to 3,675 the fiscal year before.
Then there are the illegal migrants who appear on the terror watchlist, individuals who are "reasonably suspected to be engaging in, has engaged in, or intends to engage in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism and/or terrorist activities," according to DHS.
CPB recorded 149 individuals on the watchlist in fiscal year 2023 — which ends Sept. 30 — trying to enter the country illegally, up from 98 in fiscal year 2022 and 16 in 2021, according to the Daily Caller, again citing CPB data.