More than 300 migrants on the US terror watchlist have been nabbed after crossing the southern border under the Biden-Harris administration — including ISIS suspects and a possible Palestinian explosives expert, damning new federal stats show.
And these are just the suspects who we know about.
Border Patrol sources told The Post that it’s still “incredibly easy” for terrorists to get over the border because vetting procedures rely on US databases that often lack intelligence from other countries about possible terror suspects.
The federal report did not name the terror suspects who have been apprehended, but The Post has identified several from news reports and Homeland Security sources.
In August, Border Patrol agents caught Palestinian national Omar Shehada, 35, at the New Mexico border and found that he was listed on the terror watchlist for using “explosives/arms” for an unnamed terrorist organization, according to a leaked memo.
In July, border agents in San Diego nabbed three Palestinian migrants and another from Turkey and determined they were terror suspects.
While it’s not clear which terror group the foreigners were affiliated with, border agents in the region had received an internal alert months before to watch out for Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists exploiting the open border following the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
Another case involved Lebanese national Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, who border agents caught at the El Paso, Texas, border in March. While he was being screened by medical personnel, Ebbadi confessed he was a Hezbollah member who came to the US “to try to make a bomb.”
In February, just days before former President Donald Trump visited Eagle Pass, Texas, border agents there apprehended Colombian national Carlos Obed Yepez-Bedoya, 40, and determined he was a “positive match” on the watchlist, flagging him as a “group member” of a terror group.
While those individuals were caught, some terrorists have slipped through the cracks and aren’t counted in the border data.
Earlier this year, ICE nabbed eight Tajik nationals in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia who previously crossed the border and were later found to have suspected ties to ISIS.
They were said to have plans to attack LGBTQ people in Philadelphia. A Homeland Security source recently told The Post that agents are still tracking down other members of the group who remain at large.
Additionally, a 27-year-old Somali national who was identified as a “confirmed member” of the terror group al Shabaab and was said to be “involved in the use, manufacture or transportation of explosives or firearms” was released at the California border in March 2023 and was again arrested nearly a year later by ICE in Minnesota
“It’s incredibly easy for anyone, including a terrorist to enter the US. Once in the US, if they decide to turn themselves into Border Patrol, we will take them into custody, run record checks and release them into the public within a few days,” said one Border Patrol source.
“There are many terrorists who aren’t known to the US government and aren’t on any watch lists and would be released into the country without further detainment.”
Another Border Patrol source fumed: “The vetting ‘process’ is a joke. It wouldn’t be hard for a terrorist organization to take someone with a clean record in the US since we only run people we encounter through US databases.
“They show up on the southern border claim ‘fear,’ they tell an agent they are going to stay with an ‘uncle’ in a major city and the government and the NGOs will send him there. Nobody will do follow up, they will be free to do Lord knows what,”
The number of terror suspects who came under the Biden-Harris admin is a huge jump from the Trump administration’s numbers, which didn’t exceed double digits.
Between fiscal years 2017 and 2020 — the period encompassing the Trump administration — the Border Patrol caught 11 terror suspects at the US-Mexico border.
“With all deterrence lost at our borders, it should come as no surprise to anyone that criminal and terrorist organizations have, and continue to exploit the inept policies of the Biden/Harris administration, which fly in the face of common sense when it comes to protecting the homeland,” said former Homeland Security official Charles Marino.
The Department of Homeland Security recently warned that the US threat environment will “remain high” citing migrants with “terrorism ties” entering the country.
“Over the next year, we expect some individuals with terrorism ties and some criminal actors will continue their efforts to exploit migration flows and the complex border security environment to enter the United States,” the department’s 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment warned.
“Individuals with potential terrorism connections continue to attempt to enter the Homeland at both the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders and also through the immigration system,” it added.