Tim Healy, the former director of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center under Obama, said the number of known or suspected terrorists encountered at the southern border in recent years causes him “sleepless nights,” far exceeding levels that concerned him previously.
He noted that in the past four fiscal years there were 14 encounters, but in just the past three years there were 336 – arrested between ports of entry.
“[F]rom my perspective at the Terrorist Screening Center, the last three years, you’ve had 336 known or suspected terrorists arrested between entry points in the southern border. If you take the past four years, fiscal year ’17, ’18, ’19, and ’20, you had 14. So, that caused us, from my perspective, sleepless nights,” Healy said.
When he ran the Screening Center, they tracked about 100 encounters daily, highlighting the one or two per month not already under FBI investigation.
Those one or two worried him as individuals on the watchlist unknown to the FBI within the US.
“[W]hen I was the director of the Terrorist Screening Center I had a program, I called it the gold program. And every day I was briefed on the encounters, we averaged 100 encounters a day, and I’d have them highlight in gold the ones that weren’t pending FBI cases,” Healy said.
Now there have been over 336 encounters, plus unknown “gotaways,” which he sees as a significant problem compared to prior years.
“We’d average one or two a month. So, maximum, 12 to 24. And I was concerned about those 24, because those weren’t — those were encountered in the U.S., typically by law enforcement officers, unknown to the FBI. That’s somebody that’s on the watch list unknown to us. So, I was concerned about those 24 and made sure the FBI was working those cases. Now, there [are] 336. And then, plus the gotaways, so, it’s a significant problem.”
Most Popular:
FBI Informant Who Criticized Biden Gets Bad News
Drag Queen Principal Learns His Fate Amid Controversy
