The Claim

Added 85,000 new identities to the National Counterterrorism Center’s terrorist database.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

A single factual assertion: that 85,000 new identities were added to the NCTC’s terrorist database (the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE) in 2025.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That adding 85,000 identities represents the identification of 85,000 terrorists. That these additions reflect genuine counterterrorism work. That the country is safer because these identities were added. That the previous database was incomplete or inadequate. That the additions represent a “win” for national security.

What is conspicuously absent?

Any acknowledgment that the overwhelming majority of these 85,000 identities are cartel members and associates — not terrorists in any conventional sense — who were added only because the administration first designated cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in February 2025. Any disclosure that this is not new intelligence about new threats but the reclassification of existing intelligence about drug trafficking organizations into terrorism databases. Any mention that TIDE already contained approximately 2.5 million identities before these additions, meaning the 85,000 represent a roughly 3.4% increase driven almost entirely by definitional expansion. Any discussion of the civil liberties implications of adding 85,000 people to terrorism databases — a system the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) found has a 40% false-match rate, a 99% nomination acceptance rate, and no meaningful redress process. Any acknowledgment that the NCTC director who oversaw this expansion was implicated in pressuring intelligence analysts to change assessments and later resigned. Any acknowledgment that this claim describes the input to the same system whose output was already claimed as Item #19 (“Blocked more than 10,000 individuals with narcoterrorism or cartel ties”) — it is the same operation counted from different angles.

Relationship to Item #19

This claim and Item #19 are two sides of the same coin. Item #19 claims that “10,000 individuals with narcoterrorism or cartel ties” were “blocked from entering the country.” Item #36 claims that “85,000 new identities” were added to the terrorist database. The 85,000 additions are the cause; the 10,000 “blocked” is the claimed effect. Both describe the same operational sequence: (1) designate cartels as FTOs via EO 14157; (2) direct NCTC to add cartel identities to terrorism databases; (3) screen travelers and visa applicants against the expanded database; (4) count the hits as counterterrorism achievements. Listing both the input (85,000 database additions) and the output (10,000 blocked) as separate “wins” is a form of list-padding — two entries describing the same policy operation from different vantage points. [^036-a1]

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

NCTC added over 85,000 new identities to the terrorism database in 2025, overwhelmingly cartel-related. The progression was reported through official and journalistic sources: within the first month of the FTO designation, over 21,000 cartel members and associates were added. By August 2025, NCTC Director Joe Kent testified that over 35,000 identities had been created. In his December 11, 2025 testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Kent cited approximately 35,000 “narco-terrorists” added to the watchlist. By January 14, 2026, Fox News reported 85,000+ total additions for 2025, citing DNI Gabbard and an anonymous senior counterterrorism official. The rapid escalation from 35,000 in December to 85,000 by January suggests either a surge in late-2025 additions or different counting methodologies across reporting periods. [^036-a2]

The additions were driven by Executive Order 14157’s FTO designation of cartels, not by new intelligence about terrorist threats. EO 14157, signed January 20, 2025, directed the Secretary of State to designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Secretary Rubio designated eight entities on February 20, 2025: the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, Cartel del Noreste, Gulf Cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Carteles Unidos, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua. An additional designation followed in November 2025 (Cartel de los Soles). These designations triggered the legal requirement and authority for NCTC to create terrorism identities for members and associates of the newly designated organizations. The 85,000 identities are not the product of counterterrorism investigations discovering previously unknown threats — they are the product of reclassifying existing drug trafficking and organized crime intelligence into terrorism databases. [^036-a3]

TIDE already contained approximately 2.5 million identities before the 2025 additions. NCTC’s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) held approximately 2.5 million identities as of 2020 data. The 85,000 additions represent a roughly 3.4% increase to the database’s total size. While numerically significant, these additions did not fundamentally transform the database’s scope — they extended an existing system to a new category of designees. The TSDS (the downstream watchlist derived from TIDE) contained over 1 million people as of the PCLOB’s January 2025 report. [^036-a4]

The PCLOB found systematic deficiencies in the watchlisting system that the 85,000 additions would exacerbate. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board released its terrorist watchlist review on January 23, 2025 — three days after EO 14157 was signed. Key findings: the TSDS contains over 1 million people; 40% of people initially flagged as potential matches turn out to be non-matches; the nomination standard requires only that a nominator believe someone “might” meet criteria; 99% of all nominations are accepted; protected characteristics (race, ethnicity, religion) can factor into nominations as long as they are not the “sole” justification; no meaningful appeal process exists; and the government “prioritizes acquiring new terrorism information over reviewing existing information.” Adding 85,000 new identities to a system with these documented deficiencies would predictably increase false positives and civil liberties harms. [^036-a5]

The administration itself acknowledged “less than five traditional terrorists” attempted U.S. entry in 2025. The same Fox News exclusive that reported the 85,000 figure quoted a senior counterterrorism official stating that “less than five traditional terrorists” attempted to access the United States in 2025. This confirms the 85,000 database additions are overwhelmingly cartel and gang members reclassified as terrorism-linked — not individuals who would have been in terrorism databases under any prior administration’s criteria. [^036-a6]

Strong Inferences

The 85,000 additions represent definitional expansion, not intelligence achievement. Before the FTO designation, cartel members and associates were tracked through separate law enforcement and intelligence databases: the DEA’s Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System (NADDIS), ICE’s TECS database, the FBI’s NCIC, and OFAC sanctions lists. These individuals were known to the intelligence community. What changed in 2025 was not the discovery of 85,000 previously unknown threats but their reclassification from the organized crime category to the terrorism category. The underlying intelligence did not change — the label did. Framing this reclassification as a counterterrorism achievement conflates administrative database management with threat identification. [^036-a7]

The NCTC’s analytical integrity during this period is compromised. NCTC Director Joe Kent was implicated in pressuring intelligence analysts to change their assessment of Tren de Aragua’s relationship with Venezuela’s government. Emails showed Kent pressing analysts to rewrite findings “so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS.” Two veteran National Intelligence Council analysts were fired after refusing. DNI Gabbard oversaw both the firings and the watchlisting program. Kent later resigned in March 2026 over the Iran conflict. If NCTC leadership was willing to pressure analysts on one intelligence product related to the cartel program, the same political pressures may have influenced the standards used to determine who qualified for watchlisting among the 85,000 additions. [^036-a8]

Adding 85,000 identities to a system with a 40% false-match rate will generate thousands of false positives. The PCLOB found that 40% of people initially flagged as potential matches turn out to be non-matches. With 85,000 new identities — many from regions where naming conventions produce common name combinations — the number of innocent travelers, visa applicants, and residents who will experience secondary screening, detention, questioning, or denial of entry will increase substantially. The ACLU has documented that government watchdogs found 35% of watchlist nominations are outdated and tens of thousands of names were placed on lists without adequate factual basis. The 99% nomination acceptance rate means there is effectively no quality control preventing over-inclusion. [^036-a9]

Informed Speculation

The claim sits within a broader pattern visible across the “365 wins” list: the administration performs a single policy action (designating cartels as FTOs) and then harvests multiple list entries from its downstream effects. EO 14157 generates: Item #19 (10,000 “narcoterrorists” blocked), Item #36 (85,000 database additions), and contributes to Item #30 (AEA deportations relied on TdA’s FTO designation). This is institutional list-padding — a single executive order producing at least three “wins.”

The gap between Kent’s December 2025 testimony (35,000 additions) and the January 2026 Fox News report (85,000 additions) deserves attention. Either NCTC added 50,000 identities in the final weeks of 2025 — an implausible rate that would suggest automated bulk uploads rather than case-by-case analysis — or the figures use different counting methodologies that have not been disclosed. The lack of transparency about what precisely constitutes an “identity” in this context (a named individual? a partial biometric? an alias?) makes the 85,000 figure essentially unverifiable.

The timing of the PCLOB report is also notable. The Board’s January 23, 2025 release documented systematic deficiencies in watchlisting just three days after EO 14157 was signed directing the mass expansion of those same watchlists. The administration proceeded with the expansion without addressing any of the PCLOB’s findings. By January 2026, the PCLOB had been effectively defunded and its remaining members had resigned, removing the only independent oversight body for watchlisting.

Structural Analysis

Definitional manipulation (the foundational mechanism). The claim’s core deception is treating a definitional reclassification as a counterterrorism achievement. Cartel members were already tracked by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement. They were already screened at borders. They were already subject to sanctions, arrests, and deportation. What happened in 2025 is that they were moved from organized crime databases to terrorism databases. Counting database entries as a “win” is like counting a library re-cataloging its fiction section as “non-fiction” and then claiming it acquired thousands of new non-fiction books.

The input-output double count. Item #36 (85,000 database additions) and Item #19 (10,000 blocked) describe the same operational pipeline from different ends. This is analogous to a company listing “hired 100 salespeople” and “made 500 sales calls” as two separate achievements when the sales calls were made by the salespeople who were hired. The additions are the input; the screenings are the output. Both trace to the same executive order. Counting them separately inflates the list.

Cui bono. Mass expansion of terrorism databases serves several political purposes: (a) it generates a large, impressive-sounding number (85,000); (b) it creates a permanent bureaucratic infrastructure linking cartel enforcement to counterterrorism, making the FTO designation harder to reverse; (c) it provides the downstream screening hits that become additional “wins” (Item #19); (d) it justifies the redirection of intelligence community resources from traditional counterterrorism to border security, which is DNI Gabbard’s stated priority. The primary beneficiaries are the political narrative and the institutional expansion of counterterrorism authority into immigration enforcement.

The civil liberties externality. Adding 85,000 people to terrorism databases has consequences that extend far beyond border screening. Watchlisted individuals face frozen bank accounts, employment barriers, denial of financial services, prolonged border detentions, and mandatory secondary screening — consequences that affect not just the listed individuals but anyone who shares their biographic identifiers (common names, birth dates). The ACLU documented that the TSDB is disseminated to over 18,000 law enforcement agencies, 500+ private entities, and foreign governments. Once someone is in the system, there is no meaningful way to get out. The 99% nomination acceptance rate and the absence of an appeal process mean the 85,000 additions are effectively permanent and unreviewable.

Context the Framing Omits

Cartel members were already tracked through existing databases. Before the FTO designation, the DEA maintained NADDIS (Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System), ICE maintained TECS, the FBI maintained NCIC records, and OFAC maintained sanctions lists targeting cartel members. The Kingpin Act and IEEPA sanctions already provided tools to identify and act against cartel members and their financial networks. Adding them to TIDE did not create new intelligence — it added them to a system designed for a different threat category.

The terrorism watchlist has well-documented accuracy and civil liberties problems. The PCLOB’s January 2025 report found a 40% false-match rate, a 99% nomination acceptance rate, no meaningful redress, and standards so lax that race and religion can be used in nominations as long as they are not the “sole” factor. The ACLU found that 35% of nominations are outdated and tens of thousands were placed without adequate factual basis. Adding 85,000 new identities to this already-strained system amplifies every existing deficiency.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism has condemned the narcoterrorism framework. Professor Ben Saul has stated that terrorism and organized crime are “distinct phenomena to which different legal frameworks should apply.” UN experts communicated concerns (USA 14/2025) about designating organized crime groups as terrorist organizations, warning that “terrorist listings are again being used as a first step toward justifying other illegal measures.”

NCTC’s director was compromised by political interference during this expansion. Joe Kent pressured analysts to change intelligence assessments about Tren de Aragua to align with White House narratives. The analysts who refused were fired. Kent was subsequently confirmed as NCTC director despite bipartisan concerns. He later resigned in March 2026 over the Iran conflict. The 85,000 watchlist additions were generated under his leadership and under the same political pressures that produced the compromised TdA assessment.

The PCLOB — the only independent watchlist oversight body — has been effectively dismantled. By early 2026, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which published the January 2025 watchlist report documenting systemic problems, had been defunded and its remaining members had resigned. The 85,000 watchlist additions occurred without meaningful independent oversight, and no independent body exists to evaluate whether the additions meet even the system’s already-low nomination standards.

Verdict

Factual core: Likely true. NCTC officials and DNI Gabbard have stated that 85,000+ new identities were added to the terrorism database in 2025. NCTC Director Kent testified to 35,000 additions as of December 2025. The 85,000 figure was reported by a single Fox News exclusive on January 14, 2026 and has not been independently verified, but it is consistent with the trajectory of additions (21,000 in the first month, 35,000 by August, 35,000 by December testimony, 85,000 by year’s end). The discrepancy between the December testimony and January report raises questions about counting methodology or a late-2025 surge.

The claim is misleading on three levels:

1. “Terrorist database” obscures what was actually added. The 85,000 identities are overwhelmingly cartel members and associates — not terrorists in any conventional sense. The administration itself acknowledged fewer than five “traditional terrorists” attempted U.S. entry in 2025. The additions exist because cartels were redesignated as terrorist organizations, not because 85,000 terrorists were identified. This is a database management operation presented as a counterterrorism achievement.

2. The claim counts the input of a system whose output is already counted as Item #19. The 85,000 database additions are the mechanism that generated the “10,000 blocked narcoterrorists” claimed in Item #19. They describe the same policy operation — cartel FTO designation leading to expanded watchlisting leading to expanded screening hits. Listing both as separate “wins” is double-counting.

3. Adding 85,000 identities to a system with documented deficiencies is not an unqualified good. The PCLOB found a 40% false-match rate, 99% nomination acceptance, no meaningful redress, and standards that permit racial and religious profiling. The ACLU found 35% of nominations are outdated. Adding 85,000 identities amplifies every deficiency in a system that an independent oversight board had just documented as systematically flawed. The civil liberties consequences — frozen accounts, employment barriers, travel disruptions — will fall disproportionately on Latino communities sharing names with listed individuals.

Framing as “win”: Misleading. The claim presents a definitional reclassification as a counterterrorism achievement. Cartel members were already tracked through existing law enforcement and intelligence databases. What changed is not the intelligence — it is the database label. The 85,000 additions are the direct and predictable consequence of a single executive order (EO 14157) redesignating cartels as terrorist organizations. The claim then double-counts this same operation by listing it separately from Item #19, which describes the screening results the expanded database produced. Meanwhile, the watchlisting system itself has been documented by the government’s own oversight board as having a 40% false-match rate, no meaningful quality control (99% acceptance), and no adequate redress process — problems that 85,000 new additions will only worsen.

What a reader should understand: The administration designated drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in February 2025. This designation required NCTC to add cartel members and associates to its terrorism database (TIDE). Over the course of 2025, 85,000+ identities were added — not because 85,000 terrorists were discovered, but because cartel members were reclassified from organized crime databases into terrorism databases. These same individuals were already tracked by the DEA, ICE, FBI, and Treasury. The administration then counted both the database additions (Item #36) and the resulting screening hits (Item #19’s “10,000 blocked”) as separate “wins” — double-counting a single policy operation. The government’s own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, reporting just three days before the expansion began, documented that the watchlisting system has a 40% false-match rate, accepts 99% of nominations without meaningful review, has no adequate redress process, and disproportionately affects Muslim and minority communities. Adding 85,000 identities to this system is not a precision counterterrorism achievement — it is an industrial-scale expansion of a flawed surveillance apparatus, driven by a definitional change, with predictable civil liberties consequences.

Cross-References

• Item #19: “Blocked more than 10,000 individuals with narcoterrorism or cartel ties” — the 85,000 database additions described in Item #36 are the direct cause of the screening hits claimed in Item #19. These two items describe the same policy operation (FTO designation leading to watchlist expansion leading to screening results) from different angles. Together they represent a double-count of a single executive order’s effects.
• Item #30: “Invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport brutal Tren de Aragua gang members” — shares the FTO designation mechanism and the Joe Kent/intelligence politicization thread. TdA was among the organizations whose members were added to the terrorism database. Kent’s pressure on TdA intelligence assessments raises questions about the analytical standards applied to all 85,000 additions.

Sources

Fox News Digital. “US blocks 10K narco-terrorists as terror watchlist swells by 85K in 2025.” January 14, 2026. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-blocks-10k-narcoterrorists-terror-watchlist-swells-85k-2025

Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “NCTC Supports Law Enforcement, Disrupts FTO-Designated Cartels and Gangs.” August 25, 2025. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2025/4103-pr-27-25

Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “President Trump’s Leadership Stops Terrorists: NCTC Director Kent Delivers Opening Statement at Worldwide Threats Hearing.” December 11, 2025. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2025/4127-pr-42-25

The White House. “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” Executive Order 14157. January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/designating-cartels-and-other-organizations-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/

Federal Register. “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Designations of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha, Cartel de Sinaloa, et al.” February 20, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/20/2025-02870/specially-designated-global-terrorist-designations-of-tren-de-aragua-mara-salvatrucha-cartel-de

Brennan Center for Justice. “Oversight Board’s Terrorist Watchlist Report Underscores Need for Major Overhaul.” January 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/oversight-boards-terrorist-watchlist-report-underscores-need-major

Just Security. “Oversight Board’s Watchlist Report Underscores Need for Major Overhaul.” January 2025. https://www.justsecurity.org/108032/oversight-boards-watchlist-report-need-major-overhaul/

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. “Terrorist Watchlist Report.” January 23, 2025. https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/94cd55e0-4df0-464d-b731-2b467c2f2fd8/PCLOB%20Terrorist%20Watchlist%20Report%20Unclassified%20-%20Completed%20508%20-%20Feb%205,%202025.pdf

ACLU. “The Watchlisting System Exemplifies the Government’s Post-9/11 Embrace of Biased Profiling.” February 2025. https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/the-watchlisting-system-exemplifies-the-governments-post-9-11-embrace-of-biased-profiling

CBS News. “Counterterrorism Nominee Joe Kent Under Scrutiny as Emails Show He Pushed for Edits to Intelligence Assessment.” 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/counterterrorism-nominee-joe-kent-emails-edits-intelligence-assessment/

NBC News. “National Counterterrorism Center director resigns over Iran war.” 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/national-counterterrorism-center-resigns-iran-war-rcna263692

CSIS. “When Crime Becomes Terror: Rethinking the FTO Designation.” 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/when-crime-becomes-terror-rethinking-fto-designation

Just Security. “The United States’ Dirty War on ‘Narco Terrorism.’” 2025. https://www.justsecurity.org/121115/united-states-dirty-war-narcoterrorism/

Brennan Center for Justice. “The Dangerous Sweep of Trump’s Plan to Designate Cartels as Terrorist Organizations.” 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/dangerous-sweep-trumps-plan-designate-cartels-terrorist-organizations

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “CBP Enforcement Statistics Fiscal Year 2025.” Ongoing. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy2025

Congressional Research Service. “Designating Cartels and Other Criminal Organizations as Foreign Terrorists: Recent Developments.” 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN11205