Since late 2020, Border Patrol along the United States–Mexico border has encountered over 6.9 million illegal crossers. A recent Pew Research survey reveals that 57 percent of respondents consider "dealing with immigration" a top policy priority this election year—just below "defending against terrorism" at 63 percent. 

Amid this backdrop, politicians and pundits have been quick to conflate these issues, holding numerous congressional hearings on the purported threat of terrorists entering the U.S. to commit acts of terror. This has given rise to a flood of rhetoric about said terrorists exploiting border chaos to harm Americans. 

Despite this fearmongering, the actual threat of foreign-born terrorism is relatively minor and manageable. New research from the Cato Institute indicates that since 1975, the annual likelihood of an American being murdered in a foreigner-committed terrorist attack is about one in 4.5 million.

Nonetheless, the public remains on edge. A serious car accident and explosion by a port of entry in upstate New York on November 22, 2023, was initially mistaken by many reporters and pundits as a terrorist attack. At the same time, patently fake videos on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that a terrorist had crossed the border circulated widely. 

Reports that illegal border crossers who are on the terrorist watch list have been apprehended seem to validate these fears. One person detained and released by Border Patrol in March 2023 was later discovered to be on the watch list. Similarly, Isnardo Garcia‐Amado was detained in Arizona in early 2022, released, and then promptly arrested after the government determined he was on the terrorist watchlist. 

Since late 2020, Border Patrol has encountered 357 foreigners on the terrorist watch list attempting to cross the southwest border illegally. But being on the watch list does not necessarily indicate an intent to commit terrorism on U.S. soil—which is what the public actually cares about.

Despite these apprehensions, there have been no convictions, nor have any of the watch-listed individuals been charged with actually planning a terrorist attack—an implausible result if they were all actually terrorists. The watch list seems to largely be leading to apprehensions of Colombians previously involved with groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which pose no direct threat to the United States. 

The government should be vigilant, but the public should moderate their fears regarding terrorists crossing the U.S. border. According to the Cato study, not a single American has been killed in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil carried out by an immigrant who entered illegally by crossing a land or water border. That's not to suggest such an event could never happen—it absolutely could. But so far, there's scant evidence to suggest terrorists are using this route or have any intention to do so. 

The actual risk posed by foreigners who enter in ways other than across the southern border varies considerably. For instance, the annual chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack committed by any illegal immigrant since 1975 was zero. Almost 98 percent of all victims of foreign-born terrorists were murdered in the 9/11 terror attacks—the deadliest in world history. The 9/11 hijackers entered as tourists and students, all with visas. 

This is not to trivialize the threat posed by foreign-born terrorists to the lives, liberty, and private property of Americans. Since 1975, there have been 3,046 people murdered by foreign-born terrorists on U.S. soil. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, justifying some level of continued governmental vigilance and resources.

However, perspective is crucial. During the same period, almost 990,000 people were murdered in the U.S. through regular criminal homicides—about 323 times more than those killed by foreign-born terrorists.

If media and political discussions were proportional, they would spend about one minute addressing foreign-born terrorist threats for every 5.5 hours they spend on the threat of regular homicide. However, Republicans on the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement have held as many hearings on illegal immigrant terrorists along the border as on normal crime, despite there being no attacks to speak of. 

It's vital that Americans grasp the real extent of the terrorist threat to avoid the overblown fears that lead to poor policy decisions. Those misguided policies, informed by inaccurate assessments of the risk, have led U.S. politicians to allocate disproportionate resources to a relatively minor and manageable threat. A rational evaluation of the facts should allow us to breathe a cautious sigh of relief, recalibrating our focus toward more pressing domestic issues.

The post The Manufactured Crisis of Migrant Terrorists at the Border appeared first on Reason.com.

Why can't we apprehend both of them at the border? Yesterday, both President Joe Biden and his presumed opponent in November, former President Donald Trump, arrived at the southern border for a whole lot of politicking and very little actual problem solving.

Media outlet after media outlet described it as a "split-screen" showdown. The New York Times described it as a visit "pitting the president's belief in legislating against his rival's pledge to be a 'Day 1' dictator." All right.

"A very dangerous border—we're going to take care of it," said Trump upon arrival. Biden has "the blood of countless innocent victims" on his hands, Trump added, citing the recent murder of Laken Riley—an Augusta University nursing student believed to have been killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, while running on trails at the University of Georgia.

"The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It's a new form of vicious violation to our country," Trump said, leaning hard into fear-based messaging.

Biden, on the other hand, blamed Republicans in Congress for sinking deals that would attempt to handle the crisis at the border and kept meekly calling for bipartisan compromises. "Join me," Biden said to Trump—in what the Times described as an "olive branch"—"or I'll join you" in passing the bipartisan border deal that Trump recently lambasted, leading Senate Republicans to turn on the legislation.

If at first you don't succeed, try…an executive order? He's no border dove, though: Biden is reportedly mulling an executive order to majorly crack down on asylum seekers, forcing more rigorous entry standards and deportations for those who do not meet the updated criteria. Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act extends latitude to presidents to block certain categories of entrants if deemed "detrimental to the interests of the United States." This would allow him to bypass Congress entirely.

Ironically, Section 212(f) was how Trump instituted the Muslim ban back in 2017. It's dark horseshoe theory that Biden is now considering sidestepping Congress and using the same provision. It's almost as if actual checks and balances would be helpful here, and setting cogent policy in the first place, as opposed to sweeping executive orders to attempt to bandage long-festering problems.

The number of border crossings has reached record levels. December saw almost 250,000 arrests by Border Patrol, a number which fell by more than half in early January due to Mexican immigration authorities stepping up to the plate. The top five nationalities being apprehended are currently Mexicans, Venezuelans, Guatemalans, Honduras, and Colombians, but people from all over the world are now attempting to cross the border as well—including Chinese migrants (the fastest-growing group of border-crossers).

Whether it's Biden's pointless "join me!" pleas, designed to make the media fawn all over him, or Trump calling illegal border-crossers "fighting-age men"—as if they're creating some sort of militia as opposed to seeking work as, like, dishwashers and roofers—nothing good happened at the border yesterday, and the situation got no closer to being resolved.

Scenes from New York: A little before 4 a.m. Thursday morning, an A train conductor was attacked—his neck slashed, as he stuck it out the window to make sure the train was cleared to leave—at the Rockaway Avenue station in Brooklyn (a few stops before mine).

By rush hour Thursday morning, train crews were boycotting the safety conditions they must work under and calling straphangers' attention to attacks on transit workers. For those of us trying to take the A to work (like me, to film a documentary for Reason), it was a massive inconvenience, as trains operated with severe delays. But safety on the subways has gotten intolerably bad: Year over year, NYPD reports a 13 percent increase in crime within the subway system, and an 11 percent increase in assaults specifically. Last week, a man was shot and killed on the D train. In January, a man was shot and killed on the No. 3. Merely 1,000 of the city's 6,500 subway cars are equipped with surveillance cameras; meanwhile, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has installed bright yellow barriers at the Washington Heights stop to deter criminals from pushing people onto the tracks as part of a new pilot program—which would be terribly expensive to actually scale and wouldn't solve many categories of subway-system crime (like yesterday's neck slashing).

As for the conductor in question, he received 34 stitches and nine sutures and thankfully survived.

QUICK HITS

• It's time:

Make them a buddy cop duo and call it a day https://t.co/p8fo42hSWk

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) March 1, 2024

• Congress has approved a continuing resolution that will prevent a partial government shutdown.
• Congratulations to The New Republic for finally acknowledging the fact that, generally, plastic isn't actually getting recycled (where Reason has been for a decade-plus): "Between 1990 and 2015, some 90 percent of plastics either ended up in a landfill, were burned, or leaked into the environment," reports The New Republic. Yes, we know.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in some saber-rattling toward the West yesterday, saying that the prospect of nuclear conflict ought to loom large if any countries intervene on Ukraine's behalf. "We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory," Putin said. "Do they not understand this?"
• "Several youth advocacy groups are concerned over the Secure DC bill and its potential impact on juveniles," reports ABC7. NeeNee Taylor, the founder of Harriet's Wildest Dreams, a nonprofit in the area, expressed concern at an event Wednesday night about a provision that would make stealing $500 worth of merchandise rise to the level of a felony. "A couple of my young ladies may have committed retail theft—they were actually stealing clothes for themselves to wear to school," Taylor told the news channel. "So what can we do to avoid them to have to steal the clothes?" Actually, they did not have to steal the clothes. Nor do they need to steal $500 worth of clothes in order to be able to cover their bodies to attend school.
• Bloomberg—normally good—seems to think that the Google Gemini scandal—in which its AI-powered image generator simply could not return historically accurate images of white people, but had to turn, like, the Founding Fathers into black men—was actually a "Republicans pounce" situation. (It was not.)
• Watch the dudes of The Fifth Column grace the wonderful Megyn Kelly Show with their presence (and tear Keith Olbermann apart):

"He wants to now replace the court with something else…"@mcmoynihan, @MattWelch, and @kmele on Keith Olbermann's meltdown over Supreme Court hearing Trump immunity case.

Watch & subscribe: https://t.co/Y12z2uKGMbhttps://t.co/8SsT7CZI2P

— The Megyn Kelly Show (@MegynKellyShow) February 29, 2024

The post Border Pageantry appeared first on Reason.com.