Biden’s border crisis roars back after brief Title 42 reprieve: Leaked DHS data
Anna Giaritelli
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EXCLUSIVE — Border Patrol agents arrested nearly twice as many illegal immigrants in August as in June, spelling disaster for the Biden administration that had touted declining border numbers as a policy success.
Initial numbers from inside Customs and Border Protection showed 182,401 people were apprehended after illegally entering the country last month. Roughly 179,000 of the 182,401 came across the southern border with Mexico, according to three U.S. officials who shared information with the Washington Examiner ahead of its normal release weeks after the month’s end.
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Since President Joe Biden took office, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 7 million people who illegally entered the country between ports of entry nationwide. The surge in August is unusual because illegal immigration has historically declined during the summer months when it is extremely hot near the border. The increase could mean even higher illegal immigration when temperatures drop in the fall.
The unchecked border crisis not only raises national security concerns after the FBI determined a smuggler affiliated with the Islamic State had helped a group of immigrants from Uzbekistan illegally enter the United States earlier this year, but also highlights a political vulnerability for the White House just 14 months out from Election Day.
The 182,401 apprehensions nationwide in August is nearly double the 100,611 non-U.S. citizens apprehended in June, the first full month after Title 42, a pandemic public health policy, was out of effect and Border Patrol agents were no longer permitted to turn back illegal immigrants immediately.
At the southern border alone, the estimated 179,000 apprehensions were far above 99,539 in June and 132,652 in July.
The numbers speak to the challenges that the Biden administration has had managing America’s borders since first taking office nearly 32 months ago. Illegal crossings surged from roughly 75,000 per month in each of the final months of President Donald Trump’s administration and swelled to more than 200,000 after Biden took office and reversed Trump’s immigration policies.
The new numbers confirm a prediction that former Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz made in early June during a private briefing with lawmakers in which he said that the Biden administration’s success getting illegal crossings to drop after Title 42 ended would only be short-lived.
It also spells trouble for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was given a short-lived reprieve from congressional Republicans’ fury over the high number of border crossings after arrests dipped earlier this summer. The House Homeland Security Committee is halfway through a six-part hearing series examining the state of the border under Mayorkas’s tenure.
Despite the undeniable increase, as recently as Thursday, the White House continued to call its border policies a success.
“The president has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else. He really has,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing Thursday.
Aside from the increase in total arrests, the number of families crossing was the biggest shift in demographics. Nationwide, 93,403 immigrants crossed the border and claimed to be part of a family — the highest number seen in Border Patrol’s 99-year existence.
The 93,403 family members represented more than half (or 51%) of the 182,401 total immigrants apprehended. In the first 10 months of fiscal 2023, which will end later this month, 25% of all Border Patrol apprehensions were families. The change in demographics shows that human smugglers and Mexican cartels that facilitate the smuggling of people may be shifting in who they are recruiting.
The DHS defended its handling of the border crisis and touted that 200,000 people were sent back outside the country since May, including 17,000 family members. The 17,000 family members are only 5% of the more than 184,000 people who crossed the border since May, meaning the remaining 167,000 people were released into the U.S. or remain in custody.
“This Administration continues to lead the largest expansion of lawful pathways in decades, which has reduced irregular migration while facilitating safe, orderly, and humane management of our borders,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email Friday that did not dispute the leaked border numbers. “But as with every year, the U.S. is seeing ebbs and flows of migrants arriving fueled by seasonal trends and the efforts of smugglers to use disinformation to prey on vulnerable migrants and encourage migration.”
The Biden administration has sought to process immigrants who make an initial claim for asylum while they are in custody at the border as opposed to releasing people into the U.S.
However, a 2015 court ruling barred the government from holding children or families in custody for more than 20 days. In addition, the Biden administration shuttered large family residential centers where the government had held immigrant families through court proceedings, leaving no space to detain people.
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The influx of families and shortage of space have created ideal circumstances for smugglers to flood the border with families, knowing that the U.S. government cannot accommodate the large volume of people and will resort to releasing immigrants into the country, further burdening places such as New York City, Chicago, and Massachusetts.
On Friday, NBC reported that the Pentagon had extended the federal deployment of troops at the border through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.