Border Officials Encountered Historic High of Illegal Aliens at the Southern Border in FY 2021

Since the beginning of President Joe Biden’s time in office, the Southwest border has been in complete disarray, induced by his administration’s destructive immigration directives. The lack of proper border controls and interior enforcement has led to unprecedented numbers of unlawful entries, and border encounters have risen almost every month the president has been in office.

After much unexplained delay, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has finally released the number of encounters made along the southern border for September. The data show authorities encountered 192,001 illegal aliens, ending fiscal year (FY) 2021 at 1,734,686 million encounters – an all-time high for the Southwest border.

Since Border Patrol began keeping track of encounters in FY 1960, authorities have not faced the Biden administration’s level of illegal aliens in the 61-year period. Of the 192,001 aliens encountered in September, 26 percent had at least one prior encounter with CBP officials in the past 12 months.

Unfortunately for the American people, President Biden has shown little indication of reversing his self-inflicted crisis. For starters, the president has yet to sufficiently provide Border Patrol agents the resources they require to address this crisis, such as marshaling additional personnel or erecting a wall to prevent unlawful entries. As a result, states and localities have had to pick up the slack to aid border authorities with security efforts. However, several governors have withdrawn their National Guardsmen and law enforcement from the border due to the monetary strain the deployment has caused.

To make matters worse, since January, the administration has unleashed a series of memorandums that have drastically reduced the arrest and deportation authority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Taken together, these memos ensure that most illegal aliens, including nearly all criminal offenders, will not face deportation from the United States. The scaling back of interior enforcement has sent a clear message to prospective illegal aliens: crossing the southern border unlawfully will yield no legal repercussions.

With these policies in place, it is not surprising the United States has lost operational control of the Southwest border. Furthermore, with more than 1.7 million illegal alien encounters this fiscal year, why is the president still entertaining amnesty for at least 11 million illegal aliens? It’s clear that such a proposal is only encouraging additional illegal immigration. The failed immigration mandates of his first year should be a warning to President Biden – the Southwest border will continue to worsen through the remainder of his term unless significant changes are immediately enacted.