US Says Terror Suspects Now Hit Northern Border Weekly

America’s own security chief now says a suspected terrorist is caught coming from Canada almost every week, while Washington and Ottawa argue over hurt feelings and trade deals.

Story Snapshot

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warns that a suspected or wanted terrorist is apprehended at the northern border “almost weekly.”^[1]
Federal data show a sharp rise in “known or suspected terrorists” tied to the U.S.–Canada border, even as officials stress the events are still rare overall.^[5]
Mullin says cartels and criminal gangs are shifting north as Trump’s tougher southern border policies bite.^[1]
Confusing government terms like “encounter,” “watchlist hit,” and “arrest” make it hard for citizens to know the real threat level.^[5]

Mullin’s Warning: Terror Suspects And Cartels Turning To The North

United States Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said American authorities now arrest a terrorist suspect at the U.S.–Canada border “almost weekly.” He described these as people either on a terrorism watchlist or wanted as terrorists, caught along the northern frontier.^[1] Mullin delivered the warning during a public talk in Washington, where he also said that strained ties with Canada could leave both countries more open to criminal gangs, fentanyl traffickers, and terror networks that look for weak spots.^[1]

Mullin linked this northern surge to success at the southern border under President Trump. He said tougher enforcement on the U.S.–Mexico line is pushing cartels and other criminal groups to probe the long northern boundary instead.^[1] He also claimed that, over the last year, officers seized enough fentanyl on the northern border to kill 17 million Americans, highlighting how smugglers adapt when one route gets shut down.^[1] For many conservative voters, that sounds like proof that pressure works—but only if it is applied on every front, not just in Texas and Arizona.

What The Numbers Say: Rising Risk, But Murky Definitions

Mullin’s “almost weekly” line touches a nerve because it matches a broader pattern in recent federal data. News reports on United States Customs and Border Protection numbers describe record counts of people with terrorism ties stopped at the northern border in recent years, with hundreds of such individuals flagged in one fiscal year alone.^[3] Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel also told Congress there has been a “sharp increase” in known or suspected terrorists coming through Canada, even as southern-border crossings by similar suspects dropped.^[4]

Yet older congressional testimony on the U.S.–Canada border stressed that terrorism-related encounters there were “infrequent,” and that most problems involved smuggling and cross-border crime rather than large flows of jihadists.^[12] Even now, customs data show that while northern encounters have grown, the total number of terrorism-related records logged at land borders is still a small slice compared with overall traffic.^[5] Officials also admit most non-citizens with terrorism-related records are ruled inadmissible and quickly removed, not released into the interior.^[5] That picture complicates any simple story of a constant, near-crisis level terror flow from the north.

Why Ordinary Citizens Struggle To Get Straight Answers

One of the biggest problems is language. Agencies and politicians bounce between terms like “suspected terrorist,” “known or suspected terrorist,” “terrorism-related encounter,” and “terror watchlist hit,” often in the same breath.^[5] A watchlist flag can mean anything from a serious national-security target to someone misidentified or linked only through a distant connection. Public reports usually do not explain how many of these encounters end in actual terror charges, how many are immigration violations, and how many are cleared up as false alarms.^[12]

That fog helps both sides spin the issue. Tough-on-border officials can point to high watchlist numbers to back claims of a looming threat, while critics can cite the lack of prosecutions to say the danger is overblown.^[12] A long academic record shows that, since the late 1990s, Washington has used border security narratives—including terror threats—to justify more surveillance technology, more agents, and tightened control over both the northern and southern borders.^[16] That does not mean the threats are fake. It does mean citizens have to watch closely whenever officials wave big scary numbers without sharing the full case files.

Balancing Security, Sovereignty, And Liberty On The Northern Border

For conservatives, the core question is not whether zero terrorists try to cross from Canada. The question is whether the federal government is honest with the public while it does its job of guarding the border. The U.S.–Canada line runs about 5,500 miles and has long been called the world’s “longest undefended border,” though since the September 11 attacks it has seen far more law enforcement and intelligence activity.^[14] Both countries now use sensors, checkpoints deep inside U.S. territory, and wide data sharing to monitor people on the move.^[13]^[14]

🚨 The U.S. arrests a terrorist coming from Canada almost every week.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin (@SecMullinDHS) dropping truth bombs on Public Safety Minister @gary_srp .

Time to secure the border and put #CanadaFirst. https://t.co/n5EW8Tqn7i

— Barbara Bal (@BarbaraBalCPC) June 18, 2026

An investigation into border policing found that U.S. Border Patrol has built a mass-surveillance system that tracks drivers far from any physical crossing, scanning license plates and pooling data on social media and home addresses.^[13] That reach might help catch real threats, but it can also put law-abiding citizens under a digital microscope. For Trump supporters who value both strong borders and limited government, Mullin’s remarks are a reminder to demand two things at once: a northern border that cartels and terrorists fear to test, and a security state that answers to the Constitution, not the other way around.