As Israel reels from the savage terror attacks carried out by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, many Americans are wondering, “Could it happen here?”

After all, we’ve seen it before—on 9/11, 2001.

New Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data leaked to Fox News only increases the worry, as the numbers reveal that tens of thousands of what the CBP calls "special interest aliens" have been arrested at the southern border since 2021, and many are from the Middle East.

Special interest aliens are people who could pose a threat to the homeland:

"Special interest aliens" 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 U.S.

The number of those detained is staggering.

That data, confirmed by multiple CBP sources and reflects apprehensions between ports of entry between October 2021 and October 2023, shows that agents encountered 6,386 nationals from Afghanistan in that period as well as 3,153 from Egypt, 659 from Iran and 538 from Syria.

What makes it worse is that we don’t know their current status or whether the government has any idea where they are. 

Agents also encountered 12,624 from Uzbekistan, 30,830 from Turkey, 1,613 from Pakistan, 164 from Lebanon, 185 from Jordan, 123 from Iraq and 15,594 from Mauritania. The data does not include information on how many of those migrants were removed or who were released into the U.S. with a court date.

The first question that comes to my mind is: how many crossed undetected and are now roaming around the streets of America? We know that there have been at least 1.5 million "gotaways" during Biden's tenure. We also know that terrorists are actively plotting to take advantage of the out-of-control situation:

The Department of Homeland Security’s threat assessment, published last month, noted that agents have encountered a growing number on the watch list and warned that "terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States."

"Individuals with terrorism connections are interested in using established travel routes and permissive environments to facilitate access to the United States," the assessment also said.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin explained in a Tuesday tweet that the Border Patrol is extremely concerned about who's coming in:

NEW: Internal CBP data provided & confirmed by CBP sources reveals thousands of “special interest aliens” from mostly Middle Eastern countries have been apprehended by Border Patrol while crossing into U.S. illegally over last 2 years.

Syria: 538
Yemen: 139
Iran: 659
Iraq: 123…

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 10, 2023

From his tweet:

These are Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry only, this data does not include CBP encounters at ports of entry. Border Patrol sources tell me they have extreme concerns about who is coming into the country because they have little to no way of vetting people from these special interest countries. I’m told unless they have committed a crime previously in the US, or they are on some sort of federal watchlist, there’s no way to know who they are because most of their home countries don’t share data/records with the US so there is nothing to match a name to when BP agents run fingerprints. 

President Joe Biden has been a historically awful leader—just think about the Afghanistan withdrawal, crushing inflation, his vitriolic, divisive speeches, and so much more. However, I think his biggest failure, which certainly appears to be intentional, is his utter disinterest in securing the border and hence our nation. We just have to pray that no violent madmen with bloodlust for Americans slip through. 

With an even slightly competent leader, however, we would be doing much more than praying; we would be doing everything in our power to ensure our territorial integrity.