(Texas Scorecard) – Texas Department of Public Safety officers apprehended a large group of illegal border crossers, including 23 unaccompanied children and 22 special interest aliens.
The groups crossed onto private property in Maverick County, as reported by Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for DPS.
Olivarez posted that of the 23 unaccompanied children, 16 were boys, and seven were girls. The 22 special interest aliens were from Egypt and Turkey.
A special interest alien is someone who is identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a potential national security threat due to analysis of their travel patterns and country of origin.
“SIAs are not regarded as terrorists but, because they arrive as almost complete strangers from nations where avowed anti-U.S. terrorist groups are prevalent, homeland security protocols dating to a 2004 CBP Memorandum and still largely in effect call for SIAs to be tagged and detained until they can go through extra security screening,” wrote Todd Bensman, Senior Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
In September, 27 special interest aliens crossed into Maverick County from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and India. Last week, 14 special interest aliens from Iran, Egypt, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were apprehended.
A U.S. House Judiciary Committee report estimates that at least 1.7 million special interest aliens have entered the country under the Biden-Harris administration.