No, Biden and Harris’ border crisis isn’t over yet

Since early 2021, Americans have watched as illegal aliens have flowed unchecked across the Southwest border. They have read in horror the stories of innocent Americans victimized by those here illegally. They have watched family and friends die after being poisoned with fentanyl that crossed the border. And the Biden-Harris administration has largely done nothing.

But now, after months of somewhat reduced apprehensions between crossings along the southwest border, the Biden-Harris administration is taking a victory lap. Such premature celebration, however, ignores the reality of the ongoing nature of this crisis.

Before we explain why, Americans need to understand that even if not a single inadmissible alien crosses our borders for the remainder of Biden and Harris’ terms, the millions they have already allowed into our country have done damage that will take decades to repair. For many families, like Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray, the damage could never be undone.

But if Biden and Harris want to talk numbers, the president and his “border czar” will not find an acquittal. Under their watch, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has logged more than 10 million encounters nationwide, plus another two million known “gotaways” who have crossed our borders undetected.

Many on the left like to invoke the history of Ellis Island as an excuse for mass immigration – despite the fact that these individuals arrived in accordance with the law of the time. However, the number of people who came through Ellis Island was also approximately 12 million – in the 62 years between 1892 and 1954.

The number of inadmissible aliens who have been encountered or undetected at our borders since the start of fiscal year 2021 is unprecedented. Claiming victory now because of temporarily reduced border crossings is a willful ignorance of the nature of this ongoing crisis, because these numbers alone do not tell the full story of what Americans are experiencing.

First, there are the ongoing financial consequences. As of mid-June 2024, more than 205,000 illegal aliens had arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022. Mayor Eric Adams has declared that these arrivals and the resulting costs “will destroy New York City.” Small towns will also struggle with the impact of uncontrolled border crossings for years to come. In Springfield, Ohio, a city of 60,000, about 20,000 Haitians have arrived since the crisis began, putting a huge strain on housing and other services. Whitewater, Wisconsin, a city of just 15,000, has been overwhelmed by the arrival of 1,000 illegal aliens “who often do not have basic English.” According to an official in Sanford, Maine, last year, “We’ve been stumped. … We’ve been overwhelmed,” after the cost of caring for illegal aliens tripled.

DHS has reported that more than 80 percent of illegal aliens who are “neither directly deported or repatriated by CBP nor continuously detained by ICE” remain in the United States years later. These communities, and thousands like them, will continue to pay these costs for years to come.

Second, consider the ongoing public safety implications of what is happening at the southwest border. Since FY2021, Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal aliens with criminal histories have more than doubled from FY2017-2020. Worse yet, criminals and individuals with potential ties to terrorism have been and continue to be released domestically. In fact, news recently broke that the Biden-Harris administration released 99 individuals domestically who they knew were on the terrorist watch list.. According to a DHS source, ICE officials have been “discouraged from deporting even illegal immigrants who had final deportation orders and gang ties.” Former ICE Field Director John Fabbricatore has said, “I was forced to release people who shouldn’t have been on the streets.”

How many other threats to our safety and security have also been unwittingly let loose or brought in as escape routes? How many more, who committed no crimes in their home countries or were never caught, will do so for the first time against American victims?

Finally, despite a recent decline in illegal border crossings, between ports of entry, encounters with inadmissible aliens bee Border crossings are at record highs, largely because the administration has created numerous, abusive mass release programs that encourage them to enter this way. Consider that in February 2021, Biden and Harris’ first full month in office, CBP recorded just 17,744 encounters at ports of entry across the country. By July 2024, that number had risen to 110,615. Encouraging potential border crossers to use border crossings certainly reduces the embarrassment of overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and facilities, but it ultimately leads to the same result: inadmissible aliens released domestically. And now one of these mass release programs has been temporarily halted due to widespread fraud.

This border crisis is not over — not by a long shot. It’s time for Congress and the American people to say enough is enough.

Rep. Mark E. Green, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.