Mullin touts 1,900 'terrorists' nabbed in US under Trump

The Trump administration has arrested more than 1,900 noncitizens inside the United States who it alleges are terrorists and came into the country during the Biden administration, according to a Cabinet official.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that federal, state, and local police are on guard for all types of threats at the FIFA World Cup and America 250 celebrations, including terrorists who made it into the U.S. undetected.

“Since President Trump has come into office, we have arrested over 1,900 known terrorists that came in under the Biden administration,” Mullin said during a press conference in New York City on Wednesday afternoon. “These aren’t people that [are] on [the] terrorist watch list. These were 1,900 individuals that were already known terrorists that came in underneath the Biden administration.”

“The unknown one, the one that… we’re not tracking, they do worry us at some point, but if you talk to anybody that’s in law enforcement, that’s always a concern of ours,” Mullin continued. “But we are doing everything possible, from [counter unmanned aerial systems] measures to great cooperation with local, state, and federal assets, making sure that we’re funded and we have the tools and the resources needed.”

The federal government is aware of 18,000 people on the FBI terrorism watch list who were brought into the country during the Biden administration’s botched 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joseph Kent told lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee last December that the center had recently arrived at an “alarming” conclusion about who the U.S. let into the country four years ago.

Encounters of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list database have historically been in the hundreds annually, with the majority of encounters occurring at vehicle crossing ports of entry along the U.S.-Canada border.