Exclusive Finally got the answer to the question we've been asking since Sarah Sanders said 4K terrorists were stopped at the southern border. https://t.co/iFMMwdRQZW
— Julia E. Ainsley (@JuliaEAinsley) January 7, 2019
Julia Ainsley at NBC has the scoop:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered only six immigrants on the U.S-Mexico border in the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists, according to CBP data as of May 2018 obtained by NBC News.
The low number contradicts statements by Trump administration officials, including White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who said Friday that CBP stopped nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists from crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters on Monday the exact number, which NBC News is first to report, was classified but that she was working on making it public.
Overall, 41 people on the Terrorist Screening Database were encountered at the southern border from Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, but 35 of them were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Six were classified as non-U.S. persons.
On the northern border, CBP stopped 91 people listed in the database, including 41 who were not American citizens or residents.
Border patrol agents, separate from CBP officers, stopped five immigrants on the database over the same time period, but it was unclear from the data which ones were stopped at the northern border versus the southern border.
The White House has used the 4,000 figure to make its case for building a wall on the southwest border and for closing the government until Congress funds it. They have also threatened to call a national emergency in order to get over $5 billion in funding for the wall.
It is important to remember that the Terrorist Screening Database may not be as reliable as the government claims.
What’s the Criteria for Getting on the Watch List?
According to a 2013 watch list guideline produced by the Terrorist Screening Center and obtained by The Intercept, engaging in terrorism or having a direct connection to a terrorist organization is not necessary for inclusion on the list. Parents, spouses, siblings, children and “associates” of a suspected terrorist can appear on the list without any suspicion of terrorist involvement. “Irrefutable evidence” of terrorist activity and connections is also not necessary, the document states. Reasonable suspicion is sufficient, though this isn’t clearly defined.
“These lists are horribly imprecise,” a former federal prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous, told WIRED. “They are based on rumor and innuendo, and it’s incredibly easy to get on the list and incredibly difficult to get off the list. There’s no due process for getting off the list.”
The guidelines also reveal that the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism can temporarily authorize placing entire “categories” of people on to the No-Fly and Selectee lists based on “credible intelligence” that indicates a certain category of individuals may be used to conduct an act of terrorism.
“Instead of a watch list limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future,” Hina Shamsi, head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, told The Intercept. “On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out.”
It doesn’t necessarily take a lot to get a positive match. It is basically the flying while David Nelson problem.
Wrong. The best way to read it: Border authorities encountered 6 with names sufficiently similar to one of the hundreds of thousands on multiple US Government watchlists. Senator Ted Kennedy, whose name resembled a watchlist entry, would have told you how fool-proof this is. https://t.co/wKbrlpB0Rn
— Ned Price (@nedprice) January 7, 2019
Also, beware the Maple Peril!!!!
On the northern border, CBP stopped 91 people listed in the database, including 41 who were not American citizens or residents.
So that’s 41 on the northern border with Canada versus 6 on the southern Border with Mexico. So if the President wants $5.7 billion for a wall across the southern border with Mexico to keep terrorists out, that’s $950 million per suspected terrorist. That’s certainly a fiscally conservative position that any Republican could support…
And that doesn’t count the violent, white supremacist extremists from Canada living among us. Especially those who have started their own terrorist groups. Everyone be on the lookout for:
I expect that burning smell in DC is the fact that the fire from the White House Spokeswoman’s britches has set her tuchas alight.
Open thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
dmsilev
I understand that Canada has rebuilt their Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve in direct contravention to arms limitation treaties. Will aggressive poutine deployment be far behind? We must look to our defenses!
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I’m not poutining that in my body!
Keith P
So this is a crisis of the same scale as voter fraud.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Fucking liars. I hate these people.
Adam L Silverman
@Keith P: Apparently.
Adam L Silverman
Quaker in a Basement
$950 million per “terrorist.”
$5.7 b divided by 6.
Thoroughly Pizzled
If terrorists are in such dire straits that crossing the border on foot is their best option, than we’re doing pretty well at keeping them down.
Cheryl Rofer
Someone on Twitter pointed out that Trump’s announcement itself is a lie, when he talks about the security crisis at the border. I cannot tell you how angry that constant refrain from him makes me, because I ACTUALLY LIVE IN A BORDER STATE AND SANCTUARY CITY AND THERE IS NO PROBLEM.
He does have it right that there is a humanitarian crisis, but it’s not the one he would claim.
Adam L Silverman
@Quaker in a Basement: This is what I get for borrowing Megan McArdle’s calculator.
Marcopolo
Here’s a clip of Ali Velshi on MSNBC going over (and debunking) Nielsen’s claims with a reporter from I think the WaPo though the chyron below never IDs her.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer:
Step 1: Create crisis.
Step 2: Exploit crisis.
Step 3: Profit!
Amir Khalid
I have to ask: were those six confirmed as the actual people on the watch list, or were they just similarly named?
Ohio Mom
Very off topic: I need Anne Laurie’s email and I can’t find it.
Steve in the ATL is coming to Blue Ash, Cincinnati on the 14th and 15th. We locals have been tossing around the idea of another meet-up and Steve’s visit seems like a good time to schedule one.
I want to ask Anne Laurie to do a post so this thing can get organized.
Adam, can you send me Anne Lsurie’s email or send her mine? Many thanks!
jl
Where is Great Northern $Wall$?
The report just means Trump will up his demand to $10 billion? For two walls.
Edit: Sorry, i am stupid. Trump would point out that I don’t know the construction business. You make one wall, part steel slats, part invisible aluminum, part handsome horizontal blinds of pleasing neutral color, and part bead curtain.
Then you MOVE it from South to North and back, depending on which direction Miller’s spray-on hair points on a given day. Or whatever hits the news that day.
How is that for Moar $Wall$? I’m submitting the moveable wall idea. Could also be used for California, which is totally out of control. I hear Trump is looking for a new homeland security secretary, or chief, or poohbah, or whatever it is.
Marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: Since Adam is on this thread he will probably throw you a line. However for future reference, under “quick links” (to the right of the Balloon Juice logo) there is a link that says “contact us”. If you click on this you get a second clickable link for “contact a front pager”. You can use that drop down menu to contact AL or any other FPer.
lollipopguild
@Adam L Silverman: The beatings will continue until your puns improve!
TS (the original)
@Keith P:
Shame the media can’t see this comparison.
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: That’s NBC’s Julia Ainsley, who I cited as breaking the news in the post above.
Chyron HR
@Adam L Silverman:
“And if we don’t give him the time, he’ll call every network partisan.”
HE’S GOING TO DO THAT ANYWAY YOU DUMB FUCKERS.
Adam L Silverman
Shocked, I’m shocked to find out that this was exactly what we thought it was!
Marcopolo
Wow, so apparently from the interest and knowledge shown below it appears that maybe we need a weekly BJ nautical themed thread.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Wasn’t indicated in the reporting either way.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Just email me the info and I’ll put the post up tonight when I get home from the gym. Will that work?
Marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman:Doh, that figures (slaps hand to forehead as he sees the tiny image of the reporter in her twitter feed)…I must admit, though, I am entirely onboard with the way MSNBC (and I guess CNN though I don’t watch them as much) go straight to the source of reporting when discussing issues. They deserve all the praise in the world for that instead of just bringing in “talking heads.”
Gelfling 545
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, Jesus. Don’t give him ideas.
Adam L Silverman
@lollipopguild: As long as I’m the one giving out the beatings, I see no problem with that.
Gelfling 545
@dmsilev: They are already deploying poutine within our borders! A poutine restaurant opened here last spring! To arms!
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
So for all anyone knows, those six could have been random harmless people.
trollhattan
@Marcopolo:
So long as we can bail somebody out.
I’ll share this, for Year of the Woman purposes.
NotMax
Not your doing, Adam, but makes my head hurt reading that ungrammatical construction.
Gravenstone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No, still several orders of magnitude greater. Slanders was off by a factor of 800ish. Voter fraud was something like 35 instances from several billion (with a B) ballots, so on the order of 10 exp 8 error in scale. So as you can see, criminals at the border is a substantially greater threat than voter fraud. //
Ruckus
When all this bullshit started on GWB’s watch, I was on the no fly list. Because my name is fairly common. I’ve known 2 other people with the same first name, same middle initial and same last name and we are no relation. I had to check in with a live person at the airport with 2 forms of ID just to get my boarding pass, let alone the security line, which was always fun. That doesn’t happen any more.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Fair bet that 9 p.m. wasn’t chosen willy-nilly.
“It’ll preempt Maddow!”
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Correct. They could have been matches in name only.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
“Was”? Can you ever not be on the list, once you are? GWB herpes.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
These people make John Ashcroft look reasonable. That is frightening.
Sab
I have an inlaw who got on one of those lists by riding in a Greyhound bus from Canada that happened to have a passenger already on the list. So they added everyone on that bus to the list.
I have a nephew with a sort of Irish surname who was on the do not fly list since he was seven.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: We now know What’s the Criteria for making your head hurt.
Marcopolo
So I am off to make dinner, but I am curious how many of the folks on this thread agree with me that there is like a 50/50 chance that Trump’s network event tomorrow night just backfires horribly for him? Of course all the hardline MAGA mouth breathers will lap up his every word but beyond that echo chamber I am pretty sure that most, if not all, of the rest of us have come to the conclusion that if Trump’s mouth is open he is lying.
Laying all of his Border Bullshit out in the open for another fresh debunking–and this one will be pretty high profile since it is a nationwide address–has every chance of serving like bleach on germs.
Amir Khalid
@Ruckus:
I remember reading back then of incidents where a family was prevented from boarding a plane because the baby’s name was on the no-fly list.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
She sounds like fun!
I’ve seen a couple of y tubes from russia with women dealing with assholes, and doing it quite well. One that comes to mind was a guy started giving a woman a hard time and she dropped him with one standing roundhouse kick to the head. He had no idea what hit him. She adjusted, and walked off like nothing had happened.
jl
@Amir Khalid:There might be a poutine taco threat developing.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Marcopolo: I read that Trump’s approval ratings go up when he stays out of sound and sight, but plummet when he’s out in public.
raven
A stupid as he is he’s not dumb enough to go up against the National Championship. It was just a year ago that my doc told me not to go to the game because I was near pneumonia. Numbnuts went to pose for the natural anthem and the security FUBAR made people stand inf the fucking rain for three hours to get in. The $3k I sold my tickets for made it a bit better but fuck him anyway.
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom: and don’t forget that tonight is the Demopolis, Alabama meet up!
Oh, I’m the only Juicer in Demopolis tonight? Huh.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I could easily believe that.
My fun was that for a good part of the year, I boarded several flights a week. Flying went from being an annoyance of the job to being a major waste of my week and it had been bad when the security people were hired by the airport/airlines prior to the Totally Suck Ass Department.
Amir Khalid
Does anyone remember the case of a Malaysian academic who sued the US to get herself taken off the no-fly list? Her name was Rahinah Ibrahim. She was prevented from flying back to the US to finish her doctorate, and had to complete it remotely. I wonder what became of the lawsuit, and if she actually got taken off the list.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go after anybody on MSNBC except Morning Joseph. I know he had a back-and-forth with O”Donnell a few years ago and wound up sending a check (written on those wrestling people’s money) for his KIND fund
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Someone is funning you. I check 538 several times a week, hoping to see a decline, but it’s always 41.something or 42.something. A real disappointment.
NotMax
@raven
O save the yew tree…
;)
Quinerly
@Steve in the ATL: My grandmother is buried with her first of four husbands in Demopolis, AL. Small world. ?
raven
@Steve in the ATL: I can’t believe there will be anyone there not watching the Natty.
debbie
@debbie:
Though I just found this article from Newsweek published today, which shows he’s dropping in red states.
Yay! But then:
This country is nuts.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
I’m an old white guy, our names get scrubbed regularly. It’s the white haired grandmas and anyone with skin darker than summer sunlight that always have to go through hell to get on a plane. To be honest I have no idea why I stopped getting picked out. Maybe it was after the time the TSA was running a training session and one of the geniuses put a semi auto pistol in the hand grip of my computer bag so that when I went to pick it up I would grab the weapon first. I came within about 2 inches of having my hand on it before I saw it. My reaction was pure out loud sailor, “What the fuck!” Not sure they appreciated my language. Fuck them.
NotMax
@debbie
Hawaii is not a red state, by any possible stretch of the imagination.
Ohio Mom
@Marcopolo: I tried that. It’s worked in the past but is blank for me now. I assume this is a reflection of the general shape of the blog’s infrastructure.
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t have your email either. See above, the old link isn’t working for me. You have my email, can you send me either yours or Anne Laurie’s?
Ohio Mom
@Steve in the ATL: We’re all with you in spirit.
jimmiraybob
All WH tuchases….tuchi, have been replaced with asbestos-coated steel and concrete substructures.
raven
@Ruckus: I took a tour of PT 305 in New Orleans. What a craft, some guy owned a warehouse that the Navy gave them at the end of the war and it had crates of Packard V-12’s and he donated 3 to the museum. I was bummed we couldn’t go below deck but it was still cool.
lamh36
Of course they are…there is a reason why CBS is known as the network for old white people.
debbie
@NotMax:
Not sure why it was included in that group, but that doesn’t change the overall direction provided in the article.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
https://twitter.com/Shakestweetz/status/1082389582920994817
Immanentize
@raven: It looks fabulous. But I find it odd? Wrong? That they use an African American’s voice as that of the boat in the viddy. Who are they trying to t/reach?
ETA African American woman’s voice
Ruckus
@raven:
That looks like fun. Too bad they don’t repaint them like they were during the war.
People really should see what 5 guys with 6in wide x 1in thick heavy bristle brushes can do to a paint job. We stopped in the Azores to refuel and the captain made the deck crew paint both sides of the ship, all in one day. Which means that no prep was done. We then went through a 7 day storm that blew us off course by a few hundred miles and stripped off every square inch of new paint, of course taking some of the old with it. He wanted to look good pulling into port. We didn’t. He was a first class dumbshit. Not the first or the last of those.
raven
@Immanentize: I’m not sure it is. The New Orleans accent is pretty unique. . .unless you are from Brooklyn.
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: On second thought, all the post has to say are words to this effect (edit as you wish): Cincinnati Meet-up: Anybody in the Cincinnati area want to welcome Steve in the ATL to CVG, specifically Blue Ash on either Monday, January 14 or Tuesday, January 15?
Ohio Mom suggests Slatts Pub on Cooper Road in downtown Blue Ash because it’s relatively quiet for a bar-restaurant but whatever works for everyone.
Leave your preferences for date, location and time in the comments. Doesn’t have to be in Blue Ash, that’s just where SITATL will be.
Thanks again Adam!
rikyrah
Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) Tweeted:
Some things you aren’t supposed to say about Assange:
– stinks
– mean to poor cat trapped in embassy with him
– is a front for Russian intelligence
– has helped others act as fronts for Russian intelligence
– believes he is a messianic figure
– stinks
https://t.co/ZCbZTqpkMi https://twitter.com/MollyMcKew/status/1082042602105565184?s=17
raven
@Ruckus: My old man told me about a new JG from the academy that had a hole cut in the hull to put an air conditioner in the captains cabin.
Fair Economist
@Marcopolo:
We may need to rig up a nautical pun thread too.
Mike in NC
@raven: Recently learned of PT-305 rides on Lake Ponchartrain. Might visit New Orleans next year to see the National WW2 Museum and ride the boat, then drive to Pensacola to see the National Museum of Naval Aviation.
raven
In the slideshow it looks like the color scheme may have changed. All these books I have about tin cans show different paint as time went on. They also took a lot of paint off because of fire, no?
Immanentize
@raven: Eh, Ain’t no thing. But I would bet a dinner on it. And yes, I lived in Brooklyn (the Flatlands) once. ?
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Yup, fuckem. Security kabuki.
Immanentize
@Ruckus: My Dad spent a friggin month painting his Des. Esc. After V.J. day and then they parked in in a graveyard. “No appreciation for art!” He told me.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: I just sent you an email. I’m now off to the gym.
oatler.
Hope Andy Lack isn’t the decider on this for NBC.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman:
@Ohio Mom:
Are you two entwined?
raven
@Mike in NC: It’s $350 for a ride just so you know.
raven
@Mike in NC: Stop and see the Alabama too.
raven
@Immanentize: They all spent a great deal of their time chipping, scraping and painting the entire war.
Doug R
The millennium bomber got busted in Port Angeles arriving from Victoria BC.
Well, basically he ran away from the car when he lost his nerve, but the bomb was assembled in a Vancouver/Burnaby motel room.
Kind of hard to build a wall through the Strait of Georgia, seeing as it’s on average 500 feet deep.
raven
* Civilians will now chip and paint the ships.
This was years ago.
It’s a dirty job someone has to do. And now the Navy wants civilians to start doing it, freeing up sailors.
A private company is sending out teams to chip and paint Navy ships based in Everett and Bremerton. Work already has begun on the Everett frigate USS Ingraham and destroyer USS David R. Ray.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: As if fish tacos weren’t bad enough. Being from the Southland, I have no idea what this poutine is. Must be something know about once you get north of Bakersfield.
Immanentize
@raven: that is so true. My Dad got special privileges — he got to deliver the mail, too. I think he thought that was the best job of his life. Although not always (Dear John, deaths, brothers or friends killed) but mostly just tearful joy for the boys that they all were
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, like Dracula.
Immanentize
@raven: Damn. I never saw that. Glad my Dad never did.
raven
@Immanentize: I have a bunch of letters to my dad from stateside. He saved all mine from Asia and it’s fun to read when I was lying my ass off!
lamh36
The big 3 nets will air the bullshit
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1082421856077049858
WaterGirl
This gives me hope that perhaps the media will pre-but the President’s lies even before his speech.
Doug R
@Ruckus: Didn’t know your name was also “Uncle”
karen marie
@Amir Khalid: I have a female friend, mid sixties, white woman, who has a pretty generic name (such as, for example, Ann Smith) and cannot board a plane without spending an hour or two with TSA agents, because apparently there is a person with the same name who did something (my friend has never been told what) to get their name on the watch list. This has been going on since the watch list started. For several years now she has been asking her family to come visit her here instead of her going to visit them there, because it’s frightening. Who knows what a bored or angry, poorly trained TSA person might decide to do?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@karen marie: has she tried to get the TSA precheck status? I got it a couple of years ago and it’s a great stress reducer
Ruviana
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You really don’t want to know!
Mandalay
What “shrinking base”? Where is the evidence for that?
He’s certainly not doing so well over the past couple of weeks, but there has hardly been a seismic shift in Trump’s approval/disapproval numbers. His current approval (41.3%) is pretty much where it has been for the past year, give or take a point or two. In fact his current approval is higher than it was a year ago, and for almost the entire first year of his presidency.
Trump’s opportunities to increase his popularity may become more limited but his base isn’t shrinking, and unless Republicans in Congress grow a spine his base won’t shrink.
Ben Cisco
@Steve in the ATL: Wow – I’m only an hour away, but I just got home…
Ohio Mom
@karen marie: Has your friend tried contacting one of her Senators or her Representative? That’s the sort of constituent service their staffs like to do, and they will have offices throughout her state. Just goggle the Congressperson’s name, and their contact information, including phone numbers, will be somewhere on the page.
It’s a shame she’s had this scary hassle for so long.
nativeprof
The disparity between the Canadian and Mexican borders doesn’t surprise me at all. The only serious terrorist ever stopped at a US port of entry was the Millennium bomber in Port Angeles, Washington — at the ferry crossing from Victoria. Huge stretches of the northern border are pretty much wide open. There’s no rational reason why an overseas nutcase would choose the fortified south instead.
Even though it’s a bone of contention, Fork Belknap and Fort Peck and even Kahnewa:ke right on the border don’t face nearly the same chronic hassle as the Tohono O’ohdam on the southern border. It feels inevitable that they’ll have to deal with even more wall-building straight through their land, further cutting off Native communities in Mexico.