The arrival of more than 3 million illegal immigrants during the 2023 fiscal year, according to official reports from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), brought the total number of undocumented migrants to enter the country since Joe Biden arrived at the White House to nearly 10 million. While the official number of migrant encounters in this period add up to more than 7.5 million, Border Patrol sources and experts point out that between 1.6 and 2.5 million additional people have entered the United States without being intercepted by law enforcement.
We’ve been saying it. Biden just getting warmed up. He destroys everything he looks at.
There is no border. https://t.co/evQ6hgf5iy
— Border Patrol Union - NBPC (@BPUnion) September 30, 2023
Biden obsessed with ending Trump's border policy
One of Biden's priorities during his campaign was to attack Trump's restrictive measures, even announcing that he would destroy the wall that his predecessor began to build along the southern border. Further, Biden was open about his intention to eliminate Title 42, although he kept it in force until a judge ordered it to be repealed. These actions, together with a "catch and release" immigration policy, have only further incentivized immigrants and human traffickers, resulting in Mexican drug cartels commoditizing and profiting off of the movement of migrants across the border.
BIDEN (2020): "There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration!"
Today, Biden's DHS secretary declared an "immediate need" to build 20+ miles of border wall in Texas. pic.twitter.com/QvB1aC30C1
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 4, 2023
More than 7.6 million migrant encounters since 2021
The trend is reflected in the data from the moment the president took office. From January-October 2021, the monthly figures exceeded 100,000 for the first time, totaling 1,684,116 encounters. This was an increase of more than 1 million over the previous fiscal year (646,822).
New records in 2022 and 2023
Things got even worse the following year, when migrant encounters skyrocketed to 2,766,582. In 2022, the number of registered monthly encounters never fell below six figures, and even reached close to 300,000 in September. Although illegal crossings at the northern border saw annual growth of more than 400% (from 27,180 to 109,535), the southern border was the main entry point, with 2,374,944.
However, the ceiling had not yet been reached. The waves of immigrants were a constant throughout the 2023 fiscal year, which just ended. A stalemate at different levels of the judicial system that kept Title 42 in effect was followed by several consecutive months with more than 300,000 encounters. After the definitive end of the measure in May, arrivals seemed to decrease, but rebounded to set new monthly records in August and September. The year ended with over 3 million recorded illegal immigrant entries (3,201,144), setting a new record on both borders: 2,475,665 in the south and 189,402 in the north.
At least 1.6 million immigrants evaded law enforcement
The number of officially registered encounters during this period amounts to 7,651,842. However, a large number of people managed to enter the country illegally without being detected by the Border Patrol or other law enforcement agencies. Anonymous Border Patrol agents and various authorities in border cities estimate that there at least 1.6 million illegal migrants who entered undetected. However, this figure could be as high as 2.5 million.
There have been over 1.6 MILLION known “gotaways” – people who have illegally crossed the border and escaped into the country – since Joe Biden took office.
That number is larger than the population of Philadelphia. pic.twitter.com/a6CHfZM5r2
— GOP (@GOP) October 31, 2023
