On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its latest border apprehension data, highlighting what it describes as the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in nearly four years. According to CBP, illegal border crossings dropped by 34% from June to July, a decline attributed to a presidential proclamation issued in June.
Troy Miller, acting CBP Commissioner, credited the Biden-Harris administration’s policies for this reduction, stating, “Recent Biden-Harris policies led to the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in more than three years.”
Despite these assertions, the reality of the situation appears more complex. As of July, the total number of apprehended illegal border crossers had surpassed 10.5 million, with just two months remaining in the fiscal year, which concludes on September 30. This figure does not account for the 2 million “gotaways,” individuals who entered the U.S. illegally and evaded capture, bringing the overall total to over 12.5 million. To put this in perspective, if these illegal border crossers were a state, they would be the sixth most populous, surpassing Illinois.
This figure marks a significant increase from earlier in the year when the number of illegal border crossers exceeded the population of 43 states in March and 23 states in June 2022. No previous presidential administration in U.S. history has reported such high numbers of illegal border crossers, either in a single term or across multiple terms combined. Since fiscal 2021, the total number of apprehended illegal border crossers has reached 10,522,029, excluding the 2 million gotaways. For comparison, Illinois’ population is approximately 12,516,863.
As The Center Square has consistently reported, the number of illegal border crossers has surged since President Joe Biden took office. This data excludes numerous factors, such as gotaways, tens of thousands identified as “inadmissible” and released through the CBP One phone app, and those released via parole programs created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Several of these programs were deemed illegal by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security and were cited in the impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas in February.
Furthermore, the CBP apprehension figures do not include the hundreds of thousands brought into the U.S. through parole programs from eight specific countries, following the administration’s opening of processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala.
Rep. Mark Green, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, criticized the administration’s handling of the border crisis. “Despite the false narrative they’re attempting to project, the unprecedented border crisis the president and his ‘border czar’ have created continues to rage on,” Green stated. “This administration is orchestrating a massive shell game, encouraging otherwise inadmissible aliens to cross at ports of entry instead of between them – thereby creating a façade of improved optics for the administration, but in reality imposing a growing burden on our communities.”
Green added that encounters at all ports – land, sea, and air – have risen dramatically compared to the Biden-Harris administration’s first year in office and are on track to surpass last year’s totals. “Since January 2023, more than 1.28 million inadmissible aliens have been granted entry to our country at official ports of entry through just the CBP One and CHNV mass-parole programs Biden and Harris created,” he said.
Green also highlighted the tragic impact of these policies, referencing the murders of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray by criminal foreign nationals released into the U.S. under the current administration.
Nationwide, 2,597,784 illegal foreign nationals have been apprehended this fiscal year, following a record 3.2 million in fiscal 2023, and over 2.7 million in fiscal 2022. The majority of those apprehended each year are single adults.
At the southwest border, 1,925,773 illegal border crossers were apprehended this fiscal year through July, following nearly 2.5 million apprehensions in fiscal 2023, 2.4 million in fiscal 2022, and over 1.7 million in fiscal 2021. The northern border also saw record-high apprehensions, with 162,865 illegal border crossers in this fiscal year, up from nearly 190,000 in fiscal 2023 and almost 110,000 in fiscal 2022.
