Palestinian illegal immigrant on terror watchlist arrested at southern border

US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents nabbed a Palestinian illegal immigrant on Monday who was named on a terror watchlist for an alleged previous incident of using “explosives/firearms.” CBP agents apprehended Omar Shehada, 35, at the border in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, according to a leaked memo obtained by the New York Post.

He began traveling to the US from Madrid, Spain in July, according to the CBP memo obtained by the Post. He proceeded first to Bogota, then to Panama City and finally to San Salvador before making the final trek to the US-Mexico border. The terrorist organization that Shehada is allegedly connected to was not revealed by CBP. Shehada will be incarcerated until deported from the US.

The arrest of Shehada — from the West Bank — came after the recent apprehension of three other suspected Palestinian terrorists who were found at the California border. “Salacious photos” were allegedly found on the iPhone of one of the suspects in that arrest. One of the pictures showed a masked man gripping an AK-47 rifle, according to the Post.

Terrorists are continuing to try to enter the US at its porous southern border and the war in the Middle East has accelerated that pattern. A CBP alert issued in 2023 following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists warned that Palestinian terrorists may attempt to enter the us. "Individuals inspired by, or reacting to the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border,” the CBP alert reads.

99 illegal immigrants on the terror watchlist were allowed into the US while Vice President Kamala Harris was the border czar. Fiscal year 2023 also broke the record for the number of people on the FBI terror watchlist trying to enter the US, with 151 encounters. That number is higher than the previous six years added together. The Biden administration released one suspect on the terror watchlist into the US twice.

Suspected terrorists attempting to illegally enter the US have been a legacy of the Biden-Harris administration. Between October 2016 and September 2021, CBP agents stopped 26 suspected terrorists. For the same period during the following two years, they caught 98 and 169 suspected terrorists. Between October 2023 and June 2024, they have arrested 93 so far, according to CBP data.