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The Biden administration has repeatedly refused to take its self-created border crisis seriously. Last week, they sent Vice President Kamala Harris to Guatemala and Mexico to address the ‘root causes’ of the recent surge in migration, one of which she identified as ‘climate change’. Harris promised to throw more money at the problem and laughed at the idea that she should go to the border and see the crisis firsthand. Today, the White House sent out a press release insisting that they are taking serious action on what they call the ‘border challenge’.
The email starts out with a couple of factual whoppers. It claims that ‘the trend of border apprehensions in May is a reduction of individuals (unique encounters) and families below the peak in 2019’. The White House is apparently counting it as a win that over a third of individuals encountered by CBP have attempted to recross the border multiple times. Perhaps it should be taken as a warning, not a victory, that migrants view American border security as so weak that they are willing to reoffend.
The overall encounters paint an even more grim picture. According to Border Patrol data, border apprehensions reached their peak in May 2019 with 132,856 encounters. That number was over 180,000 in May 2021. In fact, the total number of border encounters in Fiscal Year 2021 has already surpassed the total number of encounters in Fiscal Year 2019, and there are still months left to go.
The White House goes on to claim that the surge is caused by ‘seasonal trends’ rather than their removal of policies that disincentivized illegal migration. It is true that border crossings usually increase in the spring because the weather makes the trek to the border easier, but this year’s rise in crossings far surpasses a normal seasonal bump. They are not fooling anyone by claiming that the highest number of illegal border crossings in two decades is the result of a spike in the temperature.
Finally, the White House brags about the fact that it has brought 11,900 asylum-seekers back to the United States from Mexico, since they canceled the Migrant Protection Protocols, to await their court dates. A significant number of so-called asylum seekers have fraudulent claims. They claim asylum so that they will be released into the US, and then they never show up for their court dates. It is a way to game the system and easily gain entry to the country if a migrant gets caught illegally crossing the border.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
