Tipsheet

Spiraling Toward May 23: Biden's Border Crisis Sets Worst-in-a-Century Record

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  May 18, 2022 10:01 AM

May 23 is, of course, the date the Biden administration has targeted for ceasing using one of the few immigration enforcement tools they haven't yet gutted. Unless a federal judge kicks this can down the road a bit further in a forthcoming ruling – an outcome that the White House would protest publicly, but might come as a private relief – so-called Title 42 expulsions will end. The severe illegal immigration crisis, already historic and unsustainable, will explode. That was the message we heard from every single official we spoke to during Townhall's recent border trip, during which we were embedded with Texas' national guard and Department of Public Safety. Word that Title 42 is ending has been spreading for weeks among migrants, would-be migrants, and the vast cartel-run trafficking operation that dominates the border. The Democratic Congress, rife with hypocritical opportunism, is complaining, but doing nothing with actual teeth. A new, even more permissive status quo is days away. And even before the planned change takes effect, another record was shattered, as Julio mentioned yesterday: 

Border agents encountered nearly 235,000 migrants at the southern border in April, according to a Monday court filing, which accounts for the highest number of encounters in the history of the Department of Homeland Security. The numbers come as the Biden administration prepares to end Title 42, a Trump-era public health order that allowed authorities to turn away migrants at the border.

Slightly less than half of those encountered were promptly removed, the vast majority of whom were expelled under soon-to-be-jettisoned Title 42 mechanisms. Notice, however, that even with Title 42 still mostly intact, a bit more than half of April's arrivals were processed and released into the country, pending distant court dates. Many (the numbers vary dramatically) migrants and alleged "asylum seekers" never show up for these appearances. Last month alone, the number of illegal immigrants released into America by the Biden administration is approximately equivalent to the entire population of Ann Arbor Michigan. The number dwarfs the population of Wilmington, the largest city in the president's home state of Delaware. As of early May, DHS admitted that 1.4 million illegal immigrants had escaped or been released into the US, out of more than three million known unlawful border crossings. Both numbers have swelled significantly since, with the worst yet to come.

US officials established the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11, so those records only go back a few decades. The Washington Examiner adds more context to the scope of this illegal immigration surge: "all previous records over the past century: "The number of migrants encountered attempting to enter the United States illegally from Mexico rose in April, surpassing all previous records over the past century, an indication of the scale of the illegal immigration crisis at the border." We should also point out that April's nearly 235,000 number does not include known or unknown "got-aways," illegal immigrants who were not apprehended and successfully escaped into the United States. Common sense and authorities' experience dictate that these subsets of migrants contain disproportionately higher numbers of public safety threats because they entail individuals who are incentivized to take greater pains (including paying cartels much more) to avoid capture. There were 62,000 known got-aways in March, about 2,000 per day. April's number is probably similar or higher. We will soon be blowing past last fiscal year's astonishing number of 400,000-plus known got-aways in a 12-month span. And on and on it goes: 


Why should they be afraid? The US government under President Biden is actively aiding and abetting their smuggling operation, and American taxpayers are effectively funding the final leg of the trafficking journey. Astounding, but true. I'll leave you with this, as the state of Texas attempts to do something meaningful while the federal government intentionally shirks its responsibilities: