RNC Statement on March Border Encounters

191,899 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in March, making this the 25th month in a row encounters have been above 150,000

WASHINGTON – Today, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel released the following statement on the March border encounters:
 
“Joe Biden refuses to address the crisis his open border agenda created. Drug cartels and human smugglers thrive under Joe Biden’s watch as deadly fentanyl and traffickers pour into our communities. American families are thankful House Republicans will continue to hold Biden and Democrats accountable for their failures." 

Background:

• New data shows 191,899 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in March.
• That makes last month the second highest total for March in 22 years.  
• With roughly 6,000 encounters daily, this dwarfs the definition of a "crisis" set by
•  Obama's DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson when he said in 2019 that "more than 1,000" apprehensions a day "overwhelms the system."
• March’s 191,000-plus encounters is a 274 percent increase from the average number of March apprehensions from 2017-2020.
  • 12,374 unaccompanied children were apprehended.
  • 77,010 illegal immigrants were apprehended from countries outside the Northern Triangle and Mexico, showing that Biden's crisis is global.
  • At least 80 people on the terror watchlist have been apprehended trying to enter the U.S. between ports of entry so far this fiscal year.
• More than 6.3 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Biden took office.
• This includes the 5 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection has apprehended and the 1.3 million gotaways that have escaped past Border Patrol into the U.S.
• Border officials say that the official number of gotaways vastly undercounts the illegal immigrants  who make it into the U.S. 
• 2,848 pounds of deadly fentanyl and 13,639 pounds of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in March alone, with much more getting through.
• Joshua Sharfstein of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: "If they're seizing a lot, it's because a lot is coming in."
• The amount of fentanyl seized in March is the equivalent of more than 645 million lethal doses.
• Illicit drugs are flowing into the country at an alarming rate, with only 5 to 10 percent being intercepted as border officials struggle to contain the smuggling.