A History of Global Mean Surface Temperatures

We keep hearing from the global ruling class and its dupes in the mainstream media that the "earth is boiling" and that atmospheric temperatures are at record highs, a common theme during the summer months in the northern hemisphere.  As a geoscientist, I'm interested in the very long-term trends, looking at global temperatures well before the modern age which is the focus of the vast majority of climate scientists, meteorologists and those climate change evangelists that would have us believe that we are living on the edge of climate disaster.

Let's open with a graphic showing the geological time scale for those of you who are not familiar with the geological record.  This will help you put the information in this posting into context:

With that background, let's look at the subject matter of this posting.  In a paper which appeared in Science in September 2024 entitled "A 485-million-year history of Earth's surface temperature" by Emily J. Judd et al, the authors examined the long-term geological record of global mean surface temperature (GMST) using a combination of proxy data with climate modelling.  In the paper, the authors present PhanDA, a reconstruction of GMST spanning most of the Phanerozoic Eon, the last 539 million years of earth's history.  PhanDA was created using a method that statistically integrated geological data with climate model simulations.  PhanDA's global mean surface temperature shows a strong relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide, suggesting that carbon dioxide exerts dominant control over the climate during the Phanerozoic.  This surprised the authors since they anticipated that solar luminosity would have a greater impact on climate.  They hypothesize that changes in planetary albedo (reflectivity of the earth's surface) and the atmospheric content of other greenhouse gases like methane helped to compensate for the increase in solar luminosity. 

Here's what the study revealed:

1.) the relationship between GMST and carbon dioxide had a relatively constant impact on Earth's climate system sensitivity.  For example, the temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide was roughly 8 degrees Celsius no matter whether the climate was warm or cold. 

2.) the Earth's temperature has varied between 11 degrees Celsius and 36 degrees Celsius over the past 485 million years.  This is in line with other temperature estimates from the Cenozoic Era (the last 66 million years of earth's history). 

3.) there was a relationship between global mean surface temperature and the pole-to-equator temperature gradient with larger temperature changes closer to the Earth's polar regions.  Tropical temperatures ranged between 22 degrees Celsius and 42 degrees Celsius.

4.) overall, the earth has spent more time in warmer climate states during the Phanerozoic Era.

To close, here is a graphic showing the global mean surface temperature as estimated using PhanDA for the past 485 million years with the grey shaded areas showing different confidence levels and the black lines showing the average temperature and the orange and red bars showing climate that is warmer and blue and turquoise bars showing climate that is cooler:

What can we learn from this study?  From my perspective, it appears that the earth has spent more of its history with a far warmer climate that today and yet both plant and animal life flourished.  It is the use of graphics like this one which show significant and, one might say alarming, growth in warm temperature anomalies since 1960:

...that can have us believing that we are at a climate crisis point, however, given that the data on the chart only goes back to 1880, we can see now that this is hardly a long-term view of Earth's climate.  

We have to carefully examine the motives behind those who would have us believe that the earth is boiling and that we are living on the cusp of total climate destruction.  What do these individuals have to gain personally from promoting this narrative?  That, to me, is the bottom line.  If they have something to gain either financially or from increasing their control over humanity, then their motives may not be entirely trustworthy.

Mark Carney, CBDCs and the United States Dollar - Dealing with Donald Trump

For some reason or another, Canadians believe that Mark Carney is best suited to negotiate trade issues with Donald Trump.  This is likely due to the non-stop coverage that Canada's left-biased media has deluged Canadians with since Carney entered the race for replacement Liberal leader/Prime Minister in December 2024.  If we look back at comments that Carney made at a speech in 2019 which get no coverage on Canada's mainstream media, it would appear that Carney might well have an uphill battle with President Trump.

On August 23, 2019, Mark Carney in his role as Governor of the Bank of England gave this speech to the Jackson Hole Symposium, an annual gathering of central bankers, finance ministers and other economic experts from around the world:

In this rather mind numbingly boring and very technical speech, he delves into the international monetary and financial system (IMFS), focusing on how the current system challenges monetary policy.  He notes that the world economy is being reordered (thanks to the growing impact of the BRICS nations on the global economy) with the U.S. dollar remaining as important as it was when other currencies were pegged to the U.S. dollar which was pegged to the price of gold ($35 per ounce) at the Bretton Woods meeting in 1944.  This was the case until 1971 when President Richard Nixon announced his New Economic Policy, suspending the conversion of the U.S. dollar into gold.

Carney states that there is a growing "destabilizing asymmetry" at the heart of the IMFS and, with the U.S. dollar's continuing importance to the economy, it is having a significant spillover into trade performance and financial conditions of emerging economies.  This makes it difficult for central bankers to provide the stimulus necessary to achieve their objectives and, as a result, there is a growing risk of a global economic slowdown. To summarize his comments, the near-zero interest rate policies adopted by the central bankers of the United States and other advanced economies made it nearly impossible for them to lower rates further. 

 Here is a quote:

"Today, the combination of heightened economic policy uncertainty, outright protectionism and concerns that further, negative shocks could not be adequately offset because of limited policy space is exacerbating the disinflationary bias in the global economy.

What then must be done? In the short term, central bankers must play the cards they have been dealt as best they can."

He then states that central bankers need to "change the (reserve currency) game" in the new multipolar  international monetary and financial system and that (with my bolds):

"When change comes, it shouldn’t be to swap one currency hegemon for another. Any unipolar system is unsuited to a multi-polar world. We would do well to think through every opportunity, including those presented by new technologies, to create a more balanced and effective system."

Note the use of the words "new technologies".  We will see what those are later in this posting.

Now, let's see what he has to say about the U.S. dollar (again with my bolds):

"The dollar represents the currency of choice for at least half of international trade invoices, around five times greater than the US’s share in world goods imports, and three times its share in world exports.  The resulting stickiness of import prices in dollar terms means exchange rate pass-through for changes in the dollar is high regardless of the country of export and import, while pass-through of non-dominant currencies is negligible. As a result, import prices do not adjust efficiently to reflect changes in relative demand between trading partners, in part because expenditure switching effects are curtailed, and global trade volumes are heavily influenced by the strength of the US dollar....

Huge network effects mean the dollar has remained dominant in the IMFS despite the transformation of the global economy. At the time of the Latin American debt crisis, EMEs made up a little more than one third of global GDP. Since the last Fed tightening cycle, their share of global activity had risen from around 45% to 60%. By 2030, it is projected to rise to around three quarters.

As well as being the dominant currency for the invoicing and settling of international trade, the US dollar is the currency of choice for securities issuance and holdings, and reserves of the official sector. Two-thirds of both global securities issuance and official foreign-exchange reserves are denominated in dollars. The same proportion of EME foreign currency external debt is denominated in dollars and the dollar serves as the monetary anchor in countries accounting for two thirds of global GDP.

Basically, Carney blames the U.S. dollar for the woes in the global economy.    You'll note that he stated that in "changing the game" when it comes to new reserve currencies to replace the U.S. dollar, new technologies must be considered.  What are these new technologies?  Here you go:

"The Bank of England and other regulators have been clear that unlike in social media (and its attempts to create new payment systems like Facebook and Libra/Diem), for which standards and regulations are only now being developed after the technologies have been adopted by billions of users, the terms of engagement for any new systemic private payments system must be in force well in advance of any launch.

As a consequence, it is an open question whether such a new Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC) would be best provided by the public sector, perhaps through a network of central bank digital currencies.

Even if the initial variants of the idea prove wanting, the concept is intriguing. It is worth considering how an SHC in the IMFS could support better global outcomes, given the scale of the challenges of the current IMFS and the risks in transition to a new hegemonic reserve currency like the Renminbi.

An SHC could dampen the domineering influence of the US dollar on global trade."

He also notes that the most likely candidate for a replacement reserve currency is China's Renminbi but that it still has a way to go before it becomes truly a global reserve currency.  This is very noteworthy given that the Trump Administration appears to be viewing China as their "foe of choice".

So, given that Mark Carney believes that the issuance of central bank digital currencies (aka a Synthetic Hegemonic Currency) are necessary to reduce the global reliance on the U.S. dollar as the "hegemonic reserve currency" and that China's Renminbi is the heir apparent in a multi-reserve currency world, I wonder how Donald Trump will view a Prime Minister Carney, particularly given that one of his Executive Orders banned the development and use of a central bank digital currency in the United States and that his core belief is to make America the great sole superpower that it was prior to the rapidly developing multipolar reality of today.

Americans and Their Trust in Doctors and Hospitals

A paper from August 2024 in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined the results of a survey taken of Americans over the period from April 2020 (at the beginning of the COVID pandemic) through to January 31, 2024.  The paper by Dr. Roy Perlis et al attempts to answer the following question:

 

"How did trust in physicians and hospitals change during the COVID-19 pandemic?"

 

The 24 wave survey was conducted among 443,455 unique respondents residing in the United States aged 18 and older and consisted of 582,634 responses.  The mean age of the respondents was 43.3 years with 65 percent being female and 71.1 percent being White.  The study was undertaken to determine whether trust in physicians and hospitals had changed over the course of the pandemic

  

Throughout modern history, physicians have been highly regarded for their trustworthiness with a 2022 survey reporting that American adults had greater trust in physicians and nurses than any other institution or occupation.  A Gallup poll found that in 2019, medical doctors were trusted to be either very highly or highly honest and ethical by 65 percent of Americans (third highest among all professions) and nurses were trusted to be either very highly or highly honest and ethical by 85 percent of Americans (highest among all professions).

 

Let's go back to the study.  The authors of the JAMA study entitled "Trust in Physicians and Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a 50-State Survey of US Adults" found the following:

1.) the proportion of adults that reported a lot of trust for hospitals and physicians decreased from 71.5 percent in April 2020 to 40.1 percent in January 2024.  Decreased trust was associated with certain demographics including those aged 25 to 64 years of age, female gender, lower educational level, Black race and living in a rural area.  Surprisingly, self-reported political affiliation did not have a meaningful impact on trust levels.

 

Here is a graphic showing the decline in trust in hospitals and physicians over the nearly four year period by gender, race and ethnicity and age:

 

2.) Higher levels of trust in hospitals and physicians was associated with a greater likelihood of being vaccinated for COVID-19.

 

3.) Higher levels of trust in hospitals and physicians was associated with a greater likelihood of being vaccine boosted for COVID-19.

 

Here is a summary graphic showing the association between various demographic features of respondents and how these demographics either do not favour trust or favour trust:

 

Note the following:

1.) respondents between the ages of 25 and 34 tend to trust hospitals and physicians less than their older counterparts.

 

2.) female respondents tend to trust hospitals and physicians less than their male counterparts.

 

3.) respondents with lower educational levels tend to trust hospitals and physicians less than their more educated counterparts.

 

4.) black respondents tend to trust hospitals and physicians less than other races and ethnicities.

 

5.) rural respondents tend to trust hospitals and physicians less than suburban and urban counterparts.

 

Despite the decreased trust in physicians over the pandemic, other studies have discovered that the general public still found physicians and hospitals to be more trustworthy when it came to receiving health care information than all other United States institutions (i.e. government).

Here is a closing quote with my bolds:

 

"Our results cannot establish causation, but in the context of prior studies documenting associations between physician trust and more positive health outcomes, they raise the possibility that the decrease in trust during the pandemic could have long-lasting public health implications. If so, effective interventions aimed at restoring trust could have benefits, not only for future pandemics, but for health in the US more generally, at least in terms of vaccination. In examining reasons for low trust, financial conflicts of interest, a longstanding area of academic investigation in medicine, remain a major factor associated with mistrust, concerns that may have been amplified during the pandemic."

 

From the results of this study, it would appear that the medical profession has a long way to go to regain the trust of the American public after its shameful behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic.  A significant and growing proportion of Americans no longer trust the health care system to look after their best interests, suggesting that governments will have their work cut out for them if they hope to get the public to buy into a wide scale vaccination rollout in the future as they did during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Central Bank Digital Currencies - A Primer on a Cashless Society

In recent weeks, it has become increasingly apparent to me that many people are completely unaware of the concept of a central bank digital currency or CBDC.  In this posting, I will outline the key aspects of CBDC, how it will be implemented and why and will encapsulate all of the things that I have learned about our looming cashless society for your illumination.

  

Let's start by looking at the definition of a CBDC.  

"A CBDC is a form of digital currency issued by a nation's central bank and is equivalent to its physical national fiat currency (i.e the bank notes that are circulated in an economy)."

  

There are two types of CBDCs:

 

1.) Retail CBDCs - these CBDCs will be used by consumers and businesses.  There are two types of retail CBDCs:

 

a.) Account-based retail CBDCs which will require a digital identification to access an account.  These CBDCs could cause disruption in the commercial banking sector and could lead to identifying, tracking and profiling of all end-user's transactions.

 

b.) Token-based retail CBDCs which will be accessible with private keys, public keys or both which will allow an individual to execute transactions anonymously, however, central banks could choose to implement specific identity requirements to access the network, negating anonymity. 

 

2.) Wholesale CBDCS - these CBDCs will be used for transactions by the financial/commercial banking sector.

 

Here is a quote from a study on CBDCs from the European Data Protection Supervisor regarding the definition of a CBDC:

"A CBDC consists of a digital representation of coins and banknotes in the form of digital tokens. It is an electronic file that embodies a specific value with a reference to its owner attached to it. By just changing that reference, the value is transferred and a payment is made. CBDC is usually presented by central banks as a complement to cash, equipped with similar features (notably, having regard to the legal tender status), but adapted to some functional needs and to the ‘digital’ nature referred to above."

 

Some central banks (i.e. the Bank of England) are selling the benefits of a CBDC by stating that while CBDCs will be implemented, bank notes will still remain in circulation (i.e. the payment system will not become entirely digital) however, they give no time frame for the implementation of a fully digital/cashless payments system which is certain to follow.

CBDCs could be administered in one of two main architectural ecosystems:

 

1.) the direct model where the central bank provides a direct service to the end user such as a reloadable card or online digital wallet.

 

2.) the indirect model where commercial banks provide the ledger for retail transactions with the central bank maintaining the wholesale ledger of CBDC transactions with the commercial banks.

 

Under a hybrid model of CBDC administration, commercial banks will provide retail services to its customers and the central bank retains a ledger of retail transactions.  According to the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank for central banks), this is currently the architecture that most central banks are currently considering.

 

Here is a graphic showing the two types of CBDC architecture and the resulting data flow:

 

Some people comment that we already have a digital payments system which consists mainly of debit and credit cards.  While this is true, there is a key difference between CBDCs and the current digital payments system.  CBDCs will be legal tender and must be accepted if offered as payment within the jurisdiction of its issue whereas other electronic means of payment (i.e. credit cards etcetera) can be refused.

 

There are at least two issues that will make the implementation of a CBDC ecosystem difficult:

 

1.) Resilience - the CBDC banking system must be resistant to cyber security threats and must operate when the power grid is unavailable.

 

 2.) Privacy - we will have to trust that central banks and governments will not use CBDCs to track and trace our behaviours.  Here is a quote about CBDC-related privacy from a study done by Payments Canada with my bold:

  

"A CBDC with the same level of privacy as traditional cash is highly unlikely. As with cash, privacy may be limited in the service of public safety priorities around money laundering, terrorist financing, tax evasion and parallel market activities, particularly for large CBDC transactions."

  

One might ask, why do we need CBDCs.  Here are some of the reasons given by central bankers:

 

1.) reinforcement of monetary sovereignty, strategic autonomy and monetary policy implementation

 

2.) creation of a more reliable form of payment than new form of private money by private actors (i.e. Bitcoin etcetera) that bypass the existing bank-based payment systems

 

3.) to stimulate competition and innovation in payments, removing barriers and avoiding closed payment

systems created by platforms (i.e. Meta's proposed Diem)

 

4.) to foster financial inclusion, rendering the process easier for people that currently do not have a bank account 

 

5.) to improve cross-border retail payments

 

6.) reduce or eliminate money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and terrorist financing since  CBDC contain features of identifiability of the end-user and traceability of their transactions

Banking inclusiveness is always part of the sales pitch for CBDCs but you wouldn't be the only person who thinks that central bankers really don't care about the unbanked since, in general, they contribute less to the economy than the banked.

Now, let's look at the downsides to CBDCs:

 

1.) lack of privacy - all transactions can be tracked and traced

 

2.) central banks could limit the amounts of digital currency that could be owned by each person/entity

 

3.) a tiering approach could be used where there are no limits to the amount of digital currency that can be held but that amounts above a certain threshold could receive a negative interest rate which would destroy the value of the individual's savings

 

To me, the most frightening aspect of a CBDC is the potential for a programmable digital currency which is defined as a "CBDC with built-in rules, imposing restrictions on the usage of that money."

 

By implementing a programmable money through a CBDC, a government could do the following:

 

1.) define a positive or negative interest rate to incentivise or disincentive the use of money 

 

2.) limit its use to a certain category of services for example placing limits on purchases of alcohol, tobacco, gasoline, meat or other items that the government deems unnecessary or unhealthy.  This could act as a de facto rationing system which would be particularly compelling during a "climate emergency".

 

3.) set a CBDC expiry date which could be used to incentive spending during economic downturns.

 

4.) CBDCs could be linked to an individual's social credit system by way of a digital identity.  If an individual has views or behaviours that are contrary to what the current government powers believe are acceptable, this could be considered when CBDCs are issued to an individual.  In this case, CBDCs could be used to promote or impede social and political changes. 

 

The development of CBDCs is being undertaken by many nations around the world and implementation is at various stages as shown on this CBDC tracker from the Atlantic Council:

 

 

Effective in September 2024, 134 nations and currency unions representing 98 percent of global GDP are exploring a CBDC with 66 nations currently at an advanced stage of development.  Three nations have launched a full-fledged CBDC with varying results; Nigeria and its e-Naira which launched in October 2021, the Bahamas and its Sand Dollar in October 2020 and Jamaica with its Jamaican Digital Exchange or JAM-DEX in May 2022.

 

Let's close with this commentary about CBDCs from Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, once again, the central bank for central bankers:

  

That tells you all that you need to know about CBDCs and how they will be used.

It is my belief that the "boiling frog" analogy is most apt when it comes to the issuance of CBDCs.  With the vast majority of the world currently exploring the development of a central bank digital currency, we are slowly but surely being led down the garden path to a cashless society where transactional privacy is non-existent and governments will have the ability to use a heavy-handed approach to curtailing what they believe is unacceptable behaviour by their citizens through the implementation of programmable digital currencies in conjunction with a digital identification program.   All that it will take is some sort of crisis in the world’s financial markets to give the powers that ought-not-to be the excuse that they need to send the sweaty masses down the road to monetary slavery.

Mark Carney - The Inflationary Central Banker

Mark Carney is selling himself as the consummate economist who will be able to steer Canada through whatever issues the nation will fact as it deals with the Trump 2.0 Administration.  In this posting, we'll take a very brief look at just how accurate his predictions were about central bank intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  

On March 18, 2021, this article appeared in Canada's Globe and Mail:

 

When he was asked the following question:

 

"In the book (Value(s): Building a Better World for All), you talk about being worried about the amount of public debt and purchases by central banks. What concerns you the most?

  

Here is his response:

 

"I definitely agree with the stance that the major central banks have taken in terms of support. The pandemic is a huge disinflationary, if not deflationary shock, and so the right monetary policy response was in the direction they’ve taken. As well, I’d agree, given that they have fewer and fewer options to provide stimulus when needed, that the shift in the Fed’s reaction function toward this flexible average inflation targeting—so they’d have a bit of an overshoot coming out of this—is also something that’s supported for a durable recovery. We’re gonna get a quick bounce back as things reopen. The question is, does it extend? And I think the Fed’s policy will help it extend."

 

Not surprisingly, Carney agreed with the stance that his fellow central bankers, particularly at the Federal Reserve, took to prevent disinflation/deflation during the pandemic, admitting that they would have to overshoot their inflation target of 2 percent to support a durable post-pandemic recovery.

  

Here's what the Federal Reserve did to stimulate the COVID economy:

 

 

During most of 2019, the Fed's balance sheet hovered around the $4 trillion mark.  On February 26, 2020, the balance sheet stood at $4.159 trillion, rising to $7.17 trillion in June 2020, an increase of $3.011 trillion or 72.4 percent.  BY the time that Mark Carney made his comments as noted above, the Fed's balance sheet had risen to $7.904 trillion, an increase of $3.745 trillion or 90 percent above its pre-pandemic level.  The balance sheet continued to rise, hitting a peak of $8.965 trillion in April 2022, a total increase of $4.806 trillion or 115.6 percent from its pre-pandemic level.  Since then, the Fed's balance sheet has begun a very slow decline to just below $7 trillion.

 

So, what was the result of all of this money printing?  The M2 measure of the supply of money did this:

 

...M1 money supply did this:

 

...and real M1 money supply did this:

 

As a result of the unprecedented increase in the supply of money (after all, all of that "helicoptered money" has to go somewhere), this happened:

 

The average consumer price index for all goods for all consumers rose by a maximum of 9 percent in June 2022, the highest level of inflation going back to December 1981.  According to Shadowstats, the situation was far worse with consumer inflation hitting nearly 13 percent using the pre-1990 definition of inflation and nearly 17.5 percent (which is actually worse than the rate of inflation back in the early 1980s) using the pre-1980 definition of inflation as shown here:

 

Please keep in mind that while politicians would have us believe that inflation is under control because the rate of inflation has dropped to something approximating the Fed's 2 percent target, the prices of goods and services have NOT dropped, they are just inflating at a lower rate.

Let's repeat what Carney said for emphasis:

 

"I definitely agree with the stance that the major central banks have taken in terms of support. The pandemic is a huge disinflationary, if not deflationary shock, and so the right monetary policy response was in the direction they’ve taken. As well, I’d agree, given that they have fewer and fewer options to provide stimulus when needed, that the shift in the Fed’s reaction function toward this flexible average inflation targeting—so they’d have a bit of an overshoot coming out of this—is also something that’s supported for a durable recovery."

 

Is this the kind of economist that Canada needs in a leadership position?  For someone who thinks that his level of intelligence far exceeds that of the sweaty peasants and with his experience as a leading central banker, he didn't even have the ability to see that the Fed's actions (as well as the actions of other central banks) during the early stages of the pandemic were going to lead to very painful levels of inflation for consumers, many of whom will not recover financially from this economic shock treatment.  He couldn't even seem to grasp the concept that printing unprecedented amounts of "money" would result in a punitive inflationary nightmare.

But then again, does Carney really care what is best for Canadians or is he in it to remold Canada into a World Economic Forum approved dystopia?

The Canada - United States Border - Canada's Potential Terrorist Problem

With the trade war over border issues between Canada, Mexico and the United States now on temporary hiatus, I wanted to take a look at some little reported enforcement statistics from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

  

Customs and Border Protection is the federal government agency that is responsible for securing America's borders and has the following mission statement:

 

"Protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity."

 

It undertakes its mission through the following responsibilities:

 

1.) keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States.

 

2.) facilitating lawful international travel and trade.

  

CBP combines customs, immigration, border security, and agricultural protection into one coordinated and supportive activity.

 

Now, let's look at President Trump's Executive Order "Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our Northern Border" which was signed on February 1, 2025 which focuses on the flow of illegal drugs across the northern and southern borders of the United States.  The Executive Order also states this:

 

"The challenges at our southern border are foremost in the public consciousness, but our northern border is not exempt from these issues.  Criminal networks are implicated in human trafficking and smuggling operations, enabling unvetted illegal migration across our northern border....

 

...Pursuant to the NEA, I hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in that Proclamation to cover the threat to the safety and security of Americans, including the public health crisis of deaths due to the use of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and the failure of Canada to do more to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept DTOs, other drug and human traffickers, criminals at large, and drugs."

 

Note the "enabling unvetted illegal migration" and "failure of Canada to arrest...criminals at large".

 

Now, let's look at some statistics from Customs and Border Protection.  Here is a table showing how many encounters CBP had with individuals who are on the U.S. terrorist watch list for both the southern and northern borders by year:

 

 

Here is the text that accompanies the table with my bolds:

 

"This table provides a summary of CBP encounters of all persons at ports of entry with terrorism-related records at the time of their encounter and non-U.S. citizens with terrorism-related records at the time of their encounter between U.S. ports of entry.  Terrorism-related records may include records from the U.S. Government’s Terrorist Screening Dataset. As such, the information is protected from public disclosure and provided only to persons who have a need to know, such as federal law enforcement officials, for their authorized screening and vetting functions.

 

Though terrorism-related encounters at our borders represent an extremely small portion of total border encounters, the screening process to identify such individuals is an example of the critical work CBP Agents and Officers carry out every day on the frontlines. DHS works tirelessly to secure our borders through a combination of highly trained personnel, ground and aerial monitoring systems, international collaboration, and robust intelligence and information-sharing networks.

  

Noncitizens who match to a terrorism-related record that are encountered by the CBP Office of Field Operations at land ports of entry are most commonly found inadmissible to our country and immediately repatriated or removed. They may also be turned over to another government agency for subsequent detention and law enforcement action, as appropriate. When encountered by the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) after entering the country without inspection, these noncitizens are most commonly detained and removed or turned over to another government agency for subsequent detention and law enforcement action, as appropriate."

 

Since and including fiscal 2022, there have been far more individuals with terrorism-related records attempting to cross into the United States from Canada than from Mexico.  In fact, between fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2025 (so far), 220 individuals with terrorism-related records have attempted to cross into the United States from Mexico compared to 1260 individuals who crossed into the United States from Canada, nearly 6 times as many.

  

This begs the question; how did so many individuals who appear on the United States terrorist watch list end up in Canada?  While not all of them are "terrorists", one could easily assume that at least some of them are.  Is it because of Canada's open arms policy toward immigrants under the Trudeau "post-nation state" government and the inefficiency of its Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Ministry?  Or is it Canada's haste to grow its population by immigration as shown here:

 

In any case, given the statistics from the United States Customs and Border Protection, one can understand why the Trump Administration is more than a bit concerned about who is crossing from Canada into the territory for which it is responsible.