{"id":236009,"date":"2016-12-02T10:11:45","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T17:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=236009"},"modified":"2016-12-02T10:11:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T17:11:45","slug":"risk-of-terrorists-crossing-u-s-border-into-texas-is-real-but-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/12\/risk-of-terrorists-crossing-u-s-border-into-texas-is-real-but-low\/","title":{"rendered":"Risk of terrorists crossing U.S. border into Texas is real \u2014 but low"},"content":{"rendered":"

In border enforcement parlance, they\u2019re known as \u201cexotics:\u201d\u00a0distinct from the usual flow of Mexicans and Latin Americans, they are\u00a0<\/strong>people from far away countries as distant as\u00a0Bangladesh and Pakistan, arriving at the southern border\u00a0and crossing illegally\u00a0<\/strong>into the United States.<\/p>\n

\"Border

Martin do Nascimento \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p>

Only nine people were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border from the three countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism through the first 11 months of fiscal year 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

People from a subset of this group called \u201cspecial interest countries,\u201d usually defined as countries considered a concern to U.S. national security, are the perennial focus of longstanding but unrealized fears that a terrorist could melt into the hordes of people crossing the border illegally and release a dirty bomb or inflict mass casualties on the U.S. population.<\/p>\n

While still only a fraction of all migrants, the number of people from special interest countries\u00a0<\/strong>has risen sharply at a time when non-Mexicans \u00a0\u2013 mostly Central Americans \u2013 are making up a larger and larger percentage of the\u00a0border crossers taken into custody,\u00a0figures obtained by The Texas Tribune show.<\/p>\n

Do the rising numbers\u00a0<\/strong>mean the United States faces a growing threat from terrorism seeping across the U.S-Mexico border? Experts say the potential for cross-border attacks remains real, but nevertheless remote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say right up front that the cost would be extraordinarily high, but the likelihood is extraordinarily low,\u201d said Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. \u201cMy short answer in that context would be no, the Texas-Mexico border is not particularly vulnerable to terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The number of apprehensions of migrants from outside Mexico as well as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras \u2013 where most Central American migrants are coming from \u2013 apprehended on the U.S-Mexico border more than doubled from 6,630 in fiscal year 2009 to 16,973 through the first 11 months of the 2016 fiscal year, which ended in September.<\/p>\n

This is part of an\u00a0overall upward trend<\/a>\u00a0in the number of apprehensions along the country\u2019s southwest border in 2016,\u00a0and includes migrants from countries deemed\u00a0state sponsors of terrorism<\/a>\u00a0by the U.S. Secretary of State: Iran, Syria and Sudan.<\/p>\n