According to a Department of Homeland Security report reviewed by Breitbart Texas, 61,471 migrants from “Special Interest Countries” entered the United States in Fiscal Year 2023. According to a source within CBP, most of the migrants, mainly single adult males from countries subject to travel warnings by the U.S. State Department due to terrorism, were released into the United States to pursue asylum claims.
The number of migrants from special interest countries climbed by more than 140% from fiscal year 2022 when Border Patrol agents encountered more than 25,500 Special Interest migrants across the southwest border. In all, more than 86,000 “Special Interest Aliens” made the crossing in two years.
According to a 2019 DHS fact sheet, the term “Significant Interest Alien” (SIA) is defined as follows:
Generally, an SIA is a non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests. Often such individuals or groups are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism. DHS analysis includes an examination of travel patterns, points of origin, and/or travel segments that are tied to current assessments of national and international threat environments.
This does not mean that all SIAs are “terrorists,” but rather that the travel and behavior of such individuals indicate a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provide indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation. The term SIA does not indicate any specific derogatory information about the individual – and DHS has never indicated that the SIA designation means more than that.
More than 15,000 Special Interest Migrants from the Islamic Republic of Mauritania were apprehended entering the United States from Mexico during the latest fiscal year, which ended on September 30. According to the CIA World Factbook, the Northwestern African country is still working to address a continuing practice of slavery and its vestiges. Although officially abolished in 1981, slavery was not criminalized until 2007. As of 2022, the practice of slavery still exists among most ethnic groups inside the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, according to a United Nations report.
By Randy Clark
