As peak months for illegal immigration draw near, President Joe Biden’s southern border crisis is escalating. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring into the United States each month as the Biden administration works to dismantle Title 42 and create what amounts to an open border.
In March alone, border officials apprehended 221,303 illegal border-crossers, the highest number in 22 years. That’s a more than 33 percent increase from February when officials arrested 165,894 migrants at the border.
Of those March apprehensions, 76 percent were single adults, which is also a 33 percent increase since February. Arrests involving family units in March skyrocketed 42 percent from the previous month, while those involving unaccompanied minors increased 18 percent in the same timeframe.
Seizures of fentanyl also increased 55 percent as fentanyl-induced overdoses, especially in black teens, are on the rise.
Just six months into the 2022 fiscal year, border officials have arrested approximately 1,217,802 illegal border crossers. That puts the U.S. on track to record more than 2 million encounters by the end of the fiscal year in September.
Much like 2.5 million migrants who have already illegally entered and stayed in the U.S since Biden assumed office, most of these new migrants who are caught illegally crossing the border will be allowed to remain without significant consequences.
Others, such as the 300,000 “got-aways” recorded by border officials since October and other undetected migrants, will not be apprehended at all.
In 2021 alone, approximately 47,000 migrants were released into the United States because of Biden’s policies but did not report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement on time or at all, as they were required to do. That same year, federal law enforcement arrested at least 23 suspected terrorists illegally crossing the southern border.
Even more arrests and releases are expected this year as the Biden administration plans to rescind Title 42, the public health order designed to expedite the expulsion of illegal border crossers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Title 42 will be canceled on May 23, and as of now, there is no real plan for how to handle the surge of migrants it will draw to the border.
Republicans and Democrats alike have begged the Biden administration to rein in this border crisis. Instead, the White House appears to be doubling down on its open-border policies while continuing to vilify Border Patrol agents who are charged with maintaining order along the Rio Grande. Even after they were cleared of wrongdoing, Biden still refuses to apologize for amplifying lies about Border Patrol agents whipping migrants who tried to cross the border illegally last fall.