Biden-Harris administration refuses to reveal nationalities of migrants on terror watch list caught at border

EXCLUSIVE:The Biden-Harris administration has again blocked a request from KeynoteUSA to reveal the nationalities of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list arrested at the border by Border Patrol, citing the privacy interests of those who were encountered and arguing it could expose law enforcement “vulnerabilities” and “tip off” terrorists.

“(Customs and Border Protection (CBP)) is committed to protecting the identities of individuals and to avoiding disclosing information about them through direct or indirect means,” the agency said in a letter to Fox. “Revealing data about a particular nationality or nationalities that reflects a small number of individuals could lead to their identification, especially by organizations familiar with those individuals.”

Fox’s Bill Melugin filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2023 seeking the nationalities of suspects on the FBI’s terrorist watch list arrested at the southern border entering between Border Patrol ports of entry.

The request sought only the nationalities of the people found, not names or dates of birth or any other identifying information.

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Migrants attempt to cross into the United States from Mexico at the border on December 17, 2023 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)

In May, CBP told Fox it would not provide the information, although it acknowledged the information is maintained in the Terrorist Detection Data Set (TSDS).

The letter then said it was applying exemptions to protect the disclosure of files that could create a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and had to balance the public’s right to disclosure against an individual’s right to privacy.

In its letter to Fox this month, the agency reaffirmed that reasoning.

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“The privacy interests of third parties (who are protected from public disclosure because they could potentially be subject to harassment and nuisance in their private lives) far outweigh any public interest, if any, in having their information disclosed.”

The agency also said the release of the information would reveal investigative techniques used to prosecute and detain terrorists.

An aerial view of Texas National Guard troops guarding more than 1,000 migrants who crossed the Rio Grande overnight from Mexico on Dec. 18, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore)

“Providing this information could allow victims to modify their behavior to avoid detection and exploit gaps in CBP law enforcement intelligence, thereby compromising national security. In addition, providing the requested information could reveal terrorists’ travel trends by geographic area, which could help alert terrorists to the government’s knowledge of their travel plans, allowing them to take countermeasures against investigators and their investigations,” it says.

He gave examples of allowing terrorist groups to compare disclosed nationalities with operational figures.

“If such an organization moved ‘X’ number of operatives of a nationality during the relevant period, and the disclosed nationality numbers were substantially less than X, the terrorist organization could infer that a large percentage of its operatives of a particular nationality have been able to move undetected (thus minimizing the deterrent effect of the TSDS),” the letter said.

The agency argued that disclosing nationalities could allow bad actors to “take countermeasures to prevent CBP’s enforcement activities and exploit any vulnerabilities in CBP’s enforcement efforts.”

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“This information could allow bad actors to reverse engineer effective countermeasures to facilitate undetected movement and activity and thwart CBP interdiction efforts,” he argued.

Last fiscal year, there were 172 encounters with nationals on the terrorist watch list at the border between ports of entry and more than 560 at ports of entry.

So far this fiscal year, there have been 98 encounters between ports of entry and 324 at ports.

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The watch list, now called the Terrorist Screening Data Set, includes known or suspected terrorists, as well as other individuals believed to pose a potential threat to the U.S., including affiliates of individuals on the watch list.

Adam Shaw is a political reporter for KeynoteUSA Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.

You can reach him at adam.shaw2@fox.com or at Twitter.

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