‘The BorderLine’ anniversary column: Revisiting Biden’s border in numbers a year later

Welcome to the 52nd edition of “The BorderLine”! Each week for the past year, I have tried to capture the unprecedented nature of the Biden-Harris administration’s migration ideology, which largely involves allowing millions more foreigners at the border than Congress has ever authorized, while immigration enforcement is severely limited. laws in this country. With the patience of my editors at The Daily Signal, I have tried to give readers the full picture of what is happening, why it is happening and what it means for all Americans.

This anniversary column is a good time to take a closer look at some figures. In “The BorderLine” #3 I looked at President Joe Biden’s border policy in numbers, and it was not a pretty picture. Almost a year later: where are we?

Let’s start small and work our way up.

0 – The number of formal press conferences Vice President Kamala Harris has held since becoming her party’s presidential nominee in 2024, according to Fox News. Pew Research polls show that immigration is the biggest issue for Donald Trump’s supporters, with 82% considering it a major problem, as do 39% of Harris’ supporters. There is clearly public interest in what both candidates would do about immigration if elected.

2 – The number of trips Biden and Harris – each – have made to the southern border since their terms began in 2021. Biden went to Texas in 2023 and 2024. And the so-called border czar Harris, who was tasked by Biden to solve the ‘root czar’. causes” of illegal immigration in 2021, went out once in 2021 to meet with local groups that help illegal immigrants and made a second visit just a week ago.

6.5 – The percentage of Nicaragua’s total population found at US borders since Biden took office, according to the chart below. Port inspectors and Customs and Border Protection officers have also collectively encountered 6% of the entire population of Cuba, nearly 10% of Honduras and 4% of the population of Haiti. Most of them were released at the border and allowed to enter the U.S., but many were allowed to fly to U.S. airports domestically under Biden-devised “parole” arrangements.

13,000 – The number of aliens convicted of murder still in the United States. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre tried to explain how this number is “falsely represented.” Is it? The Associated Press claims the “numbers have been misinterpreted without important context because the numbers span decades,” and some who are not in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody may be held by state or local law enforcement. Some maybe, but not the majority.

The “non-detainee role” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement consists of all aliens in criminal or immigration proceedings, but not actually behind bars. The total caseload was less than 5 million cases at the end of fiscal year 2022, up from more than 6 million cases a year ago, and is now around 5 million. 7 million now. This graph shows the projected growth of this non-incarcerated population under the Biden-Harris administration.

435,719 – The number of aliens with known criminal convictions still in the United States. That was the case a year ago 407,983. Note that these are US convictions only. For all we know, some or many may have convictions in their home country or other countries.

According to information ICE recently gave to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, there were until the end of July 662,556 aliens on the non-detained roll who have either been convicted of crimes or are facing criminal charges (not including those who have solely committed the crime of crossing the border illegally). Only about 15,000 of them were in ICE custody.

Among those at large alongside the killers were 62,231 with assault charges or convictions and 56,533 with drug charges or convictions.

The Department of Homeland Security claims it has deported 180,000 people with criminal convictions since Biden took office, but many of them were simply diverted at the border and not arrested domestically. The bottom line is that the Biden administration is letting in criminal aliens at a faster rate than removing them.

One reason for this is that ICE received instructions from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that significantly limited their enforcement efforts. Another is that ICE officers have been regularly pulled from their enforcement duties to instead process the unprecedented numbers of aliens attempting to enter the US – all to fuel what I call the ruthless effort of the “Mayorkas Migration Machine” name to allow the same number of inadmissible aliens into the country. possible.

525,000 – The raw number of unaccompanied alien children Biden’s DHS has brought in since 2021 (see chart below). It was 425,000 when I wrote “BorderLine” #3 a little less than a year ago. The government has spent billions of your tax dollars to bring them in and provide them with public services. In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com estimated that the Office of Refugee Resettlement spent $18,000 per child, or almost $3 billion at the time, for their first U.S. facility.

Scandalously, hundreds of thousands of these minors have been released to people claiming to be their parents or guardians, but with little supervision. DHS transfers them to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Settlement. They have been trying to contact these children since releasing them but have been unable to reach them 90,000 of the self-appointed guards. That means they’ve lost track of as many children as there are in the entire Denver, Colorado school system. And when the government reaches someone, they hardly verify anything. They just ask a few basic questions without verification to make sure it’s true or the kids are safe.

Many children are trafficked for sex or labor.

11 million – The number of illegal encounters with aliens at the border since Biden and Harris took office. This does not apply to those who crossed the border illegally but went unnoticed.

A year ago I wrote: “Under Mayorkas’s eyes, we set the record for the most annual illegal alien encounters in US history. If those caught in 2023 formed a new city, it would be the third largest in America, behind only New York and Los Angeles.”

The number of “encounters” includes the approximately 75,000 inadmissible aliens who enter the country conditionally each month. Of those apprehended at the border, we do not know exactly how many have been released into the country. In August 2023, The Wall Street Journal estimated that 75% of inadmissible aliens caught at the border and entering illegally were admitted by DHS. In December 2023, Mayorkas testified that they actually released “more than 85%.”

Even if you take the lower percentage and add the more than two million “escapes” that came in without detection during the Biden-Harris administration (compared to a total of 415,000 for 2018, 2019 and 2020 combined during the Trump administration) and still another 1.5 million let in through Biden’s parole programs, which could amount to 9 million inadmissible aliens—known in US immigration law as ‘aliens’ – now live in the United States. That is equivalent to the population of some entire countries – Austria, Hungary or Israel, for example. Of course, those are just the additions since Biden and Harris came to power, and don’t include the 12 to 20 million who were already here illegally.

It’s hard to imagine what these numbers will look like a year from now when it’s time to write BorderLine No. 104, but only major policy changes can reverse the trend of our continued descent into an out-of-control migration quagmire.

The Boundary Line is a weekly Daily Signal feature that explores all things unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to the impact of immigration on cities and states across the country. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues such as human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism and more.

Read other BorderLine columns:

That the bipartisan border bill blames Harris Trump for the killing would codify the illegal immigration crisis into law

The Staggering Costs of Biden-Harris’ ‘America-Last’ Border Policy – ​​Part 2

The Staggering Costs of Biden-Harris’ ‘America-Last’ Border Policy – ​​Part 1

Fraud Pervades Biden-Harris’ Illegal ‘Sponsorship’ Program

Despite tough talk, the Biden-Harris administrator rolls out the red carpet for illegal alien gangs

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