Is the border crisis getting worse?

On December 15, 2023, the Customs and Border Protection Agency warned its agents of new threats at the southern border.

According to the CBP, agents are to “exercise extreme caution” when conducting patrols and other operations at the border, due to the discovery of Improvised Explosive Devices — commonly abbreviated as IEDs — by the Mexican military.

According to a Fox News report, Tucson Border Patrol agents arrested a man carrying an AK-47, magazines, ammunition, and a handgun. The agents had responded after hearing gunshots. The gunshots were later revealed to be from a gunfight between the Mexican military and cartel members at a ranch known for human smuggling and drug trafficking.

Following the gunfight, Mexican military personnel discovered 10 IEDs. Not long after, the CBP issued a memo to its agents, highlighting this alarming shift in tactics by the cartels.

The situation at the border has been becoming more and more concerning, in part due to some major geopolitical issues: the Israel-Hamas war, pro-Hamas protests, mass migration from the Middle East to the West, an increase of terrorist attacks by state-sponsored terror groups…

Whether there is a connection to IEDs being used by the cartels and the violence in the Middle East, is not sure. But mainstream media have been reporting — for some time — that migrants at the southern border are no longer just from Mexico and South America. The fear is that unknown, dangerous individuals with connections to foreign adversary governments, organizations, or terror groups could enter our borders.

For example, in the past year, CBP has arrested more than 24,000 Chinese nationals at the border, a number that is nearly ten times higher than in 2022. Another alarming statistic as reported by CBP stated that in 2023, from October to August, 151 individuals on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist were apprehended at the border. Since 2021, more than 10,000 illegal migrants from the Middle East have been apprehended at the border.

Such data statistics elude to the increased concern over the border crisis and what lawmakers are doing to fix it. What do you think? Is the border crisis a purely migratory phenomenon, or are migrants being used by adversary actors to prepare or commit hostile acts?