Texas official on CBP catching 23 known or suspected terrorists: 'Serious implications to national security'

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Texas official reacts to CBP catching 23 known or suspected terrorists in 2021: 'Serious implications to national security'

Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Christopher Olivarez warned the border crisis is likely to 'escalate' as the Biden administration is expected to lift Title 42.

Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Christopher Olivarez warned there are "serious implications to national security" after Fox News obtained documents showing more than 20 known or suspected terrorists were caught at the border last year. Lt. Olivarez argued on 'America's Newsroom,' Monday, that, even though there were 23 individuals caught, the actual number is likely "much higher" since many evade officials, going undetected as they cross into the United States. 

BORDER PATROL STOPPED 23 PEOPLE ON TERRORIST DATABASE AT SOUTHERN BORDER IN 2021: CBP DATA

CHRISTOPHER OLIVAREZ: 23 potential terrorists were actually apprehended. That just goes to show you, though, 23 that were actually caught. So we talk about that gotaways just for this fiscal year alone, over 300,000 gotaways, and that's based off any type of sensors, cameras or even shoe tracks or footprints that are left behind where the agents actually go out in the field and are able to identify and confirm what they're seeing. But again, that doesn't give you a definite number of how many people are in that group, so the number of 300,000 known gotaways is much higher. And also, you've got to take into account the unknown gotoways to get by undetected. These are individuals that are wearing camouflage clothing, the worrisome type of fabric or carpeting on their shoes to avoid leaving some type of shoe tracks because they're trying to circumvent the checkpoints… so this has serious implications to national security when we talk about potential terrorists that are crossing our borders.

WATCH THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW FROM "AMERICA'S NEWSROOM" BELOW:

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