January 1, Obama Insider: Border Surge “Bigger Than Anything We’ve Ever Seen”

An alarming admission has come from the former Department of Homeland Security Chief, Jeh Johnson, who served under the Obama administration.

During a recent Fox News appearance, Johnson candidly revealed that the current migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border surpasses anything the nation has witnessed in its history.

Even more concerning, Johnson pointed out that a significant number of these migrants remain unidentified by U.S. officials.

Commenting on the situation in the Middle East, with the deadliest attack by Hamas on Israel having taken place on October 7, followed by Israel’s substantial retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza, Johnson shifted the conversation to America’s southern border.

Hamas, labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S., has sparked fears of potential infiltration attempts by aligned individuals or suspected terrorists into the U.S., especially amidst the ongoing border crisis.

While former President Donald Trump asserted that individuals with Hamas affiliations were flooding into the U.S. through the Mexican border, no concrete evidence has been presented to validate this claim.

Still, concerns have been exacerbated after Khaled Mashaal, the former chief of Hamas, rallied for global demonstrations in favor of Palestinians.

Mashaal’s call to arms also extended to neighboring nations like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt to rally against Israel, as covered by Reuters.

Addressing the palpable anxiety amongst Americans due to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Johnson urged the public to remain alert and vigilant.

He asserted, “There are a lot of people entering our southern border right now. Thousands and thousands. It’s a hemispheric move north bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. And the challenge for [U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP], for our DHS, the FBI, is to try to keep up.”

Highlighting the inadequacy of the current system, Johnson lamented, “Unfortunately, as you know, the system is broken, it’s horribly backlogged, and there’s a whole lot of people entering this country who we cannot identify.”

Under President Joe Biden, the administration’s handling of the border situation has been a continuous source of contention. Democrats have recently criticized the DHS’s decision to continue with border wall construction.

Staggering CBP data reveals that over 2.2 million migrants have encountered U.S. authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2023 fiscal year alone, showing a rise from 2.1 million the previous year.

Equally troubling is the spike in individuals detained at the border who appear on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist. CBP has confirmed that 151 such migrants were apprehended in the fiscal year 2023, compared to 98 in 2022. However, it’s crucial to clarify that being matched to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS) doesn’t conclusively label someone as a terrorist.

The DHS explains that matches could range from “known associates of watchlisted individuals, such as family members, to individuals directly engaged in terrorist activity.”

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