Two Lebanese individuals identified as “special interest aliens” were apprehended at the U.S. southern border on Thursday and are currently undergoing background vetting, reports indicate.
Customs and Border Protection sources “confirm that 2 men in their early to mid 20s from Lebanon were apprehended in Eagle Pass, TX,” an X post from Fox News National Correspondent Griff Jenkins reads. “They are considered ‘special interest aliens’ and are currently undergoing extensive background vetting.”
BREAKING: CBP sources confirm that 2 men in their early to mid 20s from Lebanon were apprehended in Eagle Pass, TX yesterday at the location where we are reporting. They are considered “Special Interest Aliens” and are currently undergoing extensive background vetting @FoxNews
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) October 13, 2023
The apprehension comes amid increased attention to the national security threat posed by America’s border crisis in the wake of Hamas’ devastating terrorist attacks on Israel, which claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people, including women and children.
American cities have taken increased security measures in preparation for protests that fall on the same day as a “day of Jihad” announced by a former Hamas chief.
But the fighting age Lebanese males are just two of the thousands of “special interest aliens” that have entered the United States since President Biden took office in 2021, leaked data from Customs and Border Patrol reveal. While agents encountered 659 Iranian nationals and 538 from Syria between October 2021 and October 2023, an astonishing 3,153 nationals from Egypt and 6,386 from Afghanistan, marking a 1,000% increase in illegal immigration from the country.
The leaked data does not, however, denote how many of these foreign nationals were removed from the country or released into the interior of the United States with a court date, which has been as late as 2035 for some migrants.
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The figures are not included in the estimated 1.7 million foreign nationals who made it into the United States without being apprehended by authorities and are known as “gotaways.”
Meanwhile, fiscal year 2023 has already broken the record for apprehensions of migrants who are on the FBI terror watch list, surging past the previous record of 98 with a whopping 151 cases of individuals with positive terrorism watchlist matches. But both years indicate a remarkable spike from 2021, when just 15 individuals on the terror watch list were apprehended.
Two Republican Congressmen responded to the national security threat posed by our border crisis by recently introducing a resolution calling for the creation and implementation of a plan to secure the northern border, where the majority of suspected terrorists have been caught this year.