The Biden White House's Single Most Embarrassing Talking Point

Last week, we previewed the expected, record-shattering December border crisis numbers, which had been leaked to a number of Fox News correspondents. For the first time ever, more than 250,000 encounters were recorded at the southern border in a single month, they were told -- with sky high 'got-aways' to boot.

The official statistics hadn't been released yet, but that's what we were told to expect:

BREAKING: CBP sources tell FOX News the December migrant encounters number will exceed 250,000 for the first time in history - yet 15 days into Jan and they have yet to release the official figures. It comes after 9 straight months over 200k… @FoxNews
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) January 15, 2023

'STUNNING NUMBERS': @BillFOXLA on what his CBP sources are saying about the number of migrant encounters at the southern border in the month of December #FoxNews #BorderCrisis #Border #SouthernBorder pic.twitter.com/janDCscErF
— The Guy Benson Show (@GuyBensonShow) January 17, 2023

In a follow-up interview on my radio show, Jenkins told me that on top of the quarter-million encounters in December, the known 'got-aways' number exceeded 70,000. In a classic Friday night news dump, we finally got the official data, as Sarah reported over the weekend:

This is now the tenth month in a row of more than 200,000 migrant encounters at the southern border. CBP sources tell FOX there were over 70,000 known gotaways at the border in December as well. @FoxNews
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) January 20, 2023

NEW: One number that CBP does not like to talk about - the Known Gotaways. In the past 113 days of this FYTD23, CBP sources tell FOX News there have been more than 278,000 Known Gotaways - that’s roughly 2,465 per day. @FoxNews
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) January 21, 2023

The Biden administration's new supposedly "temporary" mass parole policies will bring these numbers down a bit (early year winter months are typically slower, too), but the altered arrangement is likely to incentivize and fuel more 'got-away' attempts, within a category that's already growing. December, however, was a debacle, driving the White House to revisit its most embarrassing talking point:

Republicans and some Democrats expressed concern that the order’s end would lead to a surge in encounters at the border. The Biden administration said it had a plan in place to handle any additional numbers, and repeatedly said that the border was not open, even if and when Title 42 ends. "Of course the numbers will be higher when Republican elected officials, like smugglers, falsely proclaim the border is open because of a court order to lift Title 42," an administration official told Fox News Digital on Friday.

They actually try to argue with a straight face that Republicans noticing and criticizing the Biden administration's open borders policies is what's causing the crisis. This is transparently pathetic spin. Their policies are the problem, not the critics opposing those failing policies. The policies are so bad that Democratic officials in various places, like Colorado and El Paso, have taken to shipping migrants elsewhere, as their communities are overwhelmed. Add another one to the list:

NEW: CBP reports Border Patrol arrested 17 people on the terror watchlist who crossed the southern border illegally in December.
There have now been 38 terror watchlist arrests at the southern border since FY’23 began on October 1st.
There were 98 in all of FY’22.
FY’17-FY’21: 26
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) January 21, 2023