230,678 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in October, making this the highest total for October in DHS history.
WASHINGTON -- Today, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel released the following statement on the October border encounters:
“Joe Biden and Democrats continue to ignore the humanitarian crisis they created at the border with their failed open border policies. Biden’s open border empowers drug and human traffickers, puts American families at risk, and makes American communities less safe. Plain and simple: Joe Biden is the root cause of his record-breaking border crisis, and Americans are paying the price.”
Background:
- Newly released Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data from a late-night Monday news dump shows 230,678 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in October, making this the highest total for October in DHS history.
- 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Biden took office.
- This includes the more than 4 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection has apprehended and the roughly 1 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.
- Illicit drugs are flowing into the country at an alarming rate, with only a fraction being intercepted as border officials struggle to contain the smuggling.
- 1,906 pounds of deadly fentanyl and 10,518 pounds of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in October alone, with much more likely 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 October is the equivalent of more than 432 million lethal doses.
