Canada has long defended its generous immigration policy, but has recently reversed course. Many assume this is temporary pandering that will soon loosen, but the odds are slanted towards further tightening. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows the country has stopped over 1,200 terror suspects on their “Watchlist” attempting to cross from Canada in just 4 years. An issue that was virtually non-existent prior to 2020, it’s now seeing explosive growth that will result in big changes—either to how Canada conducts immigration or how Canadians are treated at the border.
The US CBP’s Terrorists Screening Dataset, A.K.A. “The Watchlist”
The US CBP maintains a list known as the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS), lovingly nicknamed the “Watchlist.” The Watchlist is a consolidated database they maintain of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), including their known associates. Not an easy list to get on, and not a group of people most of us want to be friends with at any point.
Canada appears to be an exception here. In an effort to seize the lucrative opportunity of immigration, the country has dropped its basic ability to screen. Consequently, the US has seen a sudden surge of Watchlist suspects attempting to cross from Canada, increasingly with Canadian identification, making it more difficult to identify them.
US Border Identified Over 1,200 Watchlist Suspects From Canada
The US CBP is suddenly dealing with a surge of encounters with Watchlist members at the northern border. Annual growth of TSDS listed persons crossing from Canada surged 54% to 484 people in 2023. A look at the full data revealed this is a whopping 6x higher than encounters at the South West border, which had been historically larger until 2019. The South West border has long been controversially debated as a weak point in the country’s security, but now the northern border presents a larger threat, statistically speaking.
US Border Sees A Surge of Terror Suspects Crossing From Canada
US CBP terror Watchlist suspects identified attempting to cross into the US from Canada.
Source: US CBP; Better Dwelling.
The issue wasn’t temporary, it’s still growing. US CBP encountered 281 people on the Watchlist at the Northern border, year to date in 2024. Just to highlight how unusual this is, between 2017 and 2019, they encountered an average annual flow of 158 people. This year has already almost doubled that with a few months to go.
We know, when a lot of numbers are presented it’s easy to get lost in the point. Let’s make it blunt—since 2020, the US has encountered 1,256 known or suspected terrorists attempting to gain entry from Canada. Most Canadians are likely unaware this volume even existed in Canada. That’s just the number that tried to cross into the US at a land border and were identified.
The US CBP explained, American citizens can be arrested or transferred to another agency when this occurs. Non-citizens are denied entry and may be detained, barring justification for arrest under its policies. In other words, if they have enough to arrest the person they will, otherwise they send them back to Canada.
US Policymakers Want More Scrutiny of Canadians At Border
Most Canadian policymakers we approached seemed completely unaware of the issue. There’s been little public discussion, but it’s turned into a pressing issue behind the scenes in the US, where lawmakers are now questioning the world’s longest undefended border. Their primary concern is Watchlist members are increasingly being issued Canadian documents, making it more difficult to identify the person. As a result, they’re calling into question the friendly reputation developed, and warn other countries may need to reconsider what Canadian identification means.
“It would be irresponsible for the U.S. to not take necessary heightened precautions when foreigners attempt to enter the United States,” stated Senator Marc Rubio, urging the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to begin scrutinizing Canadian identification more.
Adding, “Irrespective of Canada’s immigration policies, the U.S. should not waive common-sense terrorist screening and vetting for any individual entering the U.S. through other countries.”
Canada Is Trying To Backtrack Unsustainable Immigration Policies
Canada has controversially used immigration as a form of economic stimulus for decades. However, like all stimulus, an overreliance makes it less effective and creates more liabilities than benefits. An easy immigration program even became a part of the country’s diplomatic strategy, as it hoped to gain influence in South Asia.
*pause for laughter at the thought Canada could attract so many Indian students it can influence their policy*
Despite this being the plan, the country failed to sort out how it would screen so many people. It tried AI to help with processing, but vetting became a virtually non-existent process under the massive volume required. The failures are now tarnishing Canada’s reputation as a safe, diplomatic nation.
Over the past few years, Canada went from being praised for its immigration policies to highly criticized. From the UN calling one program “modern slavery” to this current discussion from American lawmakers. The criticism is only finally starting to hit Canada’s policymakers, who are now acting perplexed—like they weren’t the ones that actively made the decisions.
Even the domestic picture is quickly changing as it’s revealed how easy it is to officially launder nationalities in Canada. It became an impossible-to-ignore issue when it was revealed a known terror suspect obtained citizenship right before France warned Canada they were planning a terror attack. Another shocking example is literally a global hitman that’s wanted by law enforcement across the world, but still managed to find the time to obtain a student visa to briefly settle down and study in Canada. He should write a time management book.
The situation will turn into a huge curveball for Canada’s population growth trajectory. Since his relatively recent appointment to immigration minister, MP Marc Miller has spent most of his time rolling back policy imposed by the minister he replaced, who has since been promoted to the Housing portfolio. Over the past year, international students’ enrollments were slashed and restricted to more established schools, temporary resident permits were cut by 20% after more than doubling, and low-wage stream temporary workers face an application freeze in major cities with elevated unemployment.
However, like Canada’s money laundering problem, it will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle. The problem has already spilled over into an issue our largest trade partner is now dealing with. Also similar to the laundering problem, the US is likely to pressure the country into exploring more stringent screening processes, meaning a further pull back on the primary driver of Canada’s population growth should be expected.
Insane. That’s the border, but how many people are amongst the 62k people that crossed the border illegally over the past year? I’m guessing they aren’t all people that came to Canada and found out the housing is expensive so they want to move to the US. 😉
Also haha. Diabolical to drop this on a Friday afternoon & get the gov to work on the weekend to come up with damage control.
Waiting for Canada’s math illiterate pseudo-intellectuals to downplay it as just a small number ad a share of people. It’s like a home sold per 10 terrorists, so it’s a win right?
Good and interesting read. Shocking that Canada will engage in so much short term thinking to generate real estate demand.
I’m shocked and not shocked at this point. Good research. I am interested to know if Miller’s office has actually been dealing with the issue, but I’m guessing since you contact the U.S. you contacted Canada and they did that think where they repeat what you’re asking like in the mortgage article?
Ha, I’m actually riling myself up revisiting the contempt they express from us.
He tweeted something to this effect under the better dwelling Twitter. They didn’t know, so I think the US needs to explicitly tell Canada but unclear if they do that while the person is being returned or later.
Great piece but the pièce de résistance is slipping in the guy that Canada accidentally missed and blamed India for. Magnificent!
Canada’s boldest plan to demolish the value of its citizenship in 50 years.
I know it’s a joke but it’s also an important point. If they aren’t creating value for citizens, who are they actually creating value for?
I’m guessing we don’t know how much they’re going to make on the back end of this one but it’s going to be obvious when they leave office.
That’s our dude, torching the system. I still can’t believe you got Freeland’s former policymaker to apologize for making up stuff about you.
They’re such scumbags. I’m glad you’re holding them accountable because it’s a slippery slope when they start to spread lies about journalists that are, to be totally honest, very neutral especially in the context of the rest of Canadian media.
The miracles of the international student visa. After they finish working at Tim Hortons on an LMIA, they’re busy plotting to wage terror attacks on our southern neighbour.
Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if this is an artefact of the ballooning size of the Terror Watchlist – it has quadrupled in size in a little more than a decade. I also don’t have much faith that the FBI puts people on it because they’re dangerous rather than for stuff like “is an Arab who once visited relatives in Syria.”
craziest thing I’ve read on BD. Thanks for reporting.
The TSDS contains over two million people and is known to be highly inaccurate. An audit by the Office of Inspector General found that 38% of a 105 record sample contained inaccuracies and the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General has criticized the list for frequent errors and slow response to complaints. People are not told when they are included in the TSDS so many people stopped at the border may literally not even know what’s going on.
The reason it contains that many people are some terror militias literally have 100k+ members. Canada considers many of the same groups inadmissible but literally used excel sheets for immigration until recently (now it’s an excel-backed system), so it doesn’t have the bandwith to actually process them.
Dangerous game, they are playing.
Im one of those people on a terrorist watch list. want to know how I got placed on the list?
Because I openly support Palestinian resistance on twitter. Thats it. Thats the entire reason. No criminal record, never been charged with a crime. Never been investigated for any sort of terrorist activity.
But because I openly support Palestinian/Lebanese/Yemeni resistance groups on social media, im now perm banned from entering the United States.
I have made many attempts to speak to Government officials on our side at every level of Government in order to have this looked at.
I am still trying to have someone from our side look at this, if anyone knows who I can contact, please reach out. Thanks
LOL. F off, that’s not the way the TSDS works. It’s actual terrorists and organized crime. There’s no CIA officers assigned to look for you, and if there were you would be facing extradition.
They might deny you entry but that’s different. You would be arrested and in a US prison right now if you were on the list.
The only people who have been able to get away is if they can’t confirm the identify of the person, which is the issue with using Canadian IDs for identity laundering.
Is the U.S. really in a state to point fingers at irresponsible immigration policy with their open door program letting millions of people walk over the border and live better than their homeless veterans?
but they moved to Canada so they wouldn’t have to be in the terror group. *wink, wink*
Refugee law is so vulnerable to criminal exploitation. That isn’t to say we don’t have real refugees but participation in a criminal or terror enterprise shouldn’t be forgiven just because they claim coercion. How does one ensure they aren’t still one with a new ID?
Interesting how they are reporting Terrors coming from Canada into the US…what about the southern border? They are coming in like a float-gate and I don’t think much of any checking is being done.
They did. It’s literally in the article that it’s now higher than the southern border, which wasn’t the case in 2019.
Be cautious about what you read and see in the media. In July 2019, the U.S. designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The issue is that Iranian men are required to serve two years in the military to gain civil rights, such as obtaining a passport or buying property. Since 2020, this policy has been enforced even for conscripts, who are aware that military service is mandatory. The 1,200 individuals being referenced are Iranian-Canadian men who served decades ago and are now labeled as terrorists, despite the fact that the IRGC was not designated as a terrorist organization at that time.
The Iranian community in Canada has also complained that the IRGC leaders are regularly in Canada, and harass dissidents in the country.
Their needs to be a middle ground where we screen at least some people.
That’s true. However for Iranaians there is a clear distinction between IRGC officials and the conscripts. And it’s a very easy process to exclude them since every iranian man has a military completion certificate which clearly refers to being as a conscript or an official. But governments, specifically US didn’t bother to keep them in consideration
With respect, it’s called a “watch list”. Not an arrest list. And if someone served in a foreign military that is designated as a terrorist organization than that is something that should be flagged and monitored.