Friday news dumps are a staple of political strategy, wherein the release of damaging or unflattering information is times to coincide with most people tuning out the news as they enter their weekends. It's a tried and true practice, employed by partisans of all stripes. Late last Friday evening, when many Americans were several drinks deep or already in bed, the Biden administration published the September statistics from the Southern border. They were terrible. Sarah wrote up the basics yesterday, but I wanted to make sure that this story got top billing on a Monday. Democrats and many of their media allies only acknowledge the border crisis in the context of smearing border agents or railing against 'cruel' actions by Republican governors. They don't want to talk about what's actually happening down there, which is a direct result of this president's reckless and failing policies. A total, ongoing, dysfunctional, unmitigated disaster:
Late night drop🚨
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) October 22, 2022
CBP finally released the number of encounters Border Patrol at the southern border in Sept: Over 227,000. For fiscal year 2022, there were over 2.3 million encounters.
This does not include the number of illegal immigrants who managed to avoid apprehension. pic.twitter.com/6K3d7kncHm
As Julio points out, the sky-high encounters statistic -- more than 227,000 for September alone, and over 2.3 million for the year -- does not include tens of thousands of monthly known got-aways. Since Biden took office, US officials have detected and logged approximately one million known got-aways. Fox's Bill Melugin adds more data and context into the mix:
BREAKING: In a blatant Friday late night news dump, CBP has released the September border numbers, revealing there were 227,547 migrant encounters, the highest Sept. in DHS history.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 22, 2022
FY’22 ended with 2,378,944 encounters, also the highest ever, & doesn’t include gotaways. @FoxNews
These numbers dropped just before 11pm on Friday, with the president (once again) at the beach for the weekend. More from Melugin:
BREAKING: There were 20 arrests of known or suspected terrorists on the FBI’s terror watchlist at the border in September, according to new CBP numbers.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 22, 2022
FY’22 ended with 98 terror watchlist arrests.
That’s almost quadruple the previous 5 years combined.
FY17-FY21 = 26@FoxNews
Controlling the border is a national sovereignty and law and order issue. It also has public safety and national security components. If US agents apprehended 20 suspects from the FBI's terrorism watch list at the border last month, how many dangerous people were among the tens of thousands who were not arrested? As I mentioned above, roughly one million known got-aways have been observed and catalogued since the start of the Biden administration. It stands to reason that illegal immigrants who know they'd be prioritized for detention or deportation would undertake greater efforts to avoid capture, so it's a safe assumption that people who represent public safety and national security threats are overrepresented in the 'got-away' categories. How is this remotely acceptable to anyone? There's also this awful statistic to consider:
BREAKING ** FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVELY OBTAINS ** The number that @CBP refuses to make public: 856 - the number of migrants DEATHS at our southern border for FY22.
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) October 22, 2022
The highest and deadliest EVER on record. Meanwhile, there have been 25 migrant deaths already this FY23... @FoxNews https://t.co/ROIi5Id25I
This border crisis is historically deadly. It is not at all compassionate to incentivize this mass lawlessness, which is literally what the Biden administration has done and continues to do. It has resulted in death, systemic sexual assault, and chaos -- all of which is massively enriching Mexican drug cartels, who are running the largest-scale human trafficking on earth, effectively aided and abetted by the United States government. It's scandalous. And the people in charge won't even acknowledge the reality of the crisis, focused instead on clumsy political optics. I'll leave you with this -- on and on it goes:
Good morning from Eagle Pass, TX, where we had another group of 100+ cross this AM. Eagle Pass is part of Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector. CBP sources tell @FoxNews there have already been over 29,000 illegal crossings here in October so far, a 50% increase over same time last yr. pic.twitter.com/ftXWBa0CnY
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 23, 2022
NEW: Our @FoxNews drone with thermal imaging was flying in the pre dawn hours as hundreds of migrants crossed illegally into Eagle Pass, TX this morning. These groups turned themselves in to TX National Guard. Del Rio sector Border Patrol reports 3,300+ known gotaways last week. pic.twitter.com/jnCleyf01p
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 21, 2022