14 Syrians, 2 Lebanese apprehended crossing US border after 151 people on FBI terror watch list entered illegally in 2023: report

According to NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley, sources told her that 14 Syrians have been apprehended along the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas.

Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins reported that US Customs and Border Patrol revealed "2 men in their early to mid 20s from Lebanon were apprehended in Eagle Pass, TX yesterday at the location where we are reporting."

"They are considered 'Special Interest Aliens' and are currently undergoing extensive background vetting," Jenkins wrote.

This comes as Fox News revealed on Tuesday that thousands of these "Special Interest Aliens" from the Middle East and North Africa have been apprehended crossing the border into the US illegally since October of 2021. President Joe Biden's border policy has been essentially to let everyone in.

Special interest aliens, the outlet reports, "are people from countries identified by the U.S. government as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat to the US."

This includes 6,386 from Afghanistan, 3,153 from Egypt, 659 from Iran, 538 from Syria, 30,830 from Turkey, 1,613 from Pakistan, 164 from Lebanon, 185 from Jordan, 139 from Yemen, 123 from Iraq, 15,594 from Mauritania, and 13,624 from Uzbekistan.

These numbers, which span from October 2021 to October 2023, do not include encounters by CBP’s Office of Field Operations at ports or entry, nor the over 1.5 million "gotaways" that have snuck into the country under the Biden administration.

Fiscal year 2023 also broke the record for the number of encounters with those on the FBI terror watch list, with 151 of these people being encountered entering the country between ports of entry. This number is higher than the previous six years combined.

This also comes amid a war that has broken out in the Middle East, with Palestinian Hamas terrorists launching an attack against Israel that has seen over 1,000 deaths. Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group, is reportedly "fully ready" to assist in war efforts against Israel, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem reportedly said on Friday.