The Republican National Committee

Republican National Committee Logo
June 9, 2021 | Research

Biden Administration Tries To Bury The Border Crisis

Research

Border Apprehensions Rose Again In May To More Than 180,000 – The Highest Level In 21 Years – But The Biden Administration Tried To Hide The News

BIDEN’S BORDER CRISIS GETS EVEN WORSE

  • For the second month in a row, the Biden administration has quietly released the monthly border numbers after-hours in an attempt to bury them.
  • Border apprehensions rose again in May, with 180,034 migrants apprehended trying to cross the border.
    • This is the highest one-month total in 21 years.
    • 14,158 unaccompanied children were apprehended.
    • It’s over a 200 percent increase from the average number of May apprehensions during the Trump administration, and a 674 percent increase over last May.
  • Border apprehensions have increased every single month that Biden has been president.
    • 711,784 migrants have been caught attempting to illegally cross the border in Biden’s first five months in office.
  • 88,998 migrants who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border have been released into the United States since Biden took office, a stark contrast to the just 18 people who were let go during President Trump’s final full month in office.
  • Drug seizures along the southern border increased by 18 percent in the last month, with fentanyl and methamphetamine smuggling spiking.
  • Since March, Texas State Police on boat patrol have intercepted 35,385 migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande River.
    • A Texas Department of Public Safety official said they are making only a small dent, with thousands getting past.

AMERICANS ARE BEING PUT AT RISK

  • Intelligence officials warned the White House in a classified briefing that individuals with ties to terrorist groups are taking advantage of the “porous border.”
    • Migrants on the terrorism watchlist have already been caught illegally crossing into the U.S. 
  • Migrant smugglers are increasingly evading Border Patrol by driving through school zones to get Border Patrol to stop the chase. 
  • 7,200 illegal immigrants have been put on commercial airlines by the Biden administration and flown into the U.S. interior without photo ID and without negative coronavirus tests. 

BIDEN’S OPEN BORDER POLICIES ARE INHUMANE

  • Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan called Biden’s border policy the “most inhumane” he’s ever seen.  
    • Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recognizes “the Biden administration’s immigration policy writ large is not working – it’s wrong and it’s inhumane.”
  • Migrants have been rescued from the Rio Grande river after nearly drowning trying to cross the border. 
  • A 5-year old migrant boy was captured sobbing at the border after smugglers abandoned him. 
  • Children are being “warehoused” at emergency shelters with no access to fresh clothes, with some saying that they would rather pass the time sleeping than play outside because they were “unsure when their clothes would be cleaned again.”
  • One woman described the horror of living in a Biden-migrant camp, saying “two weeks ago there were 6 kidnappings in one night.”
  • Officials are raising the alarm of a potential spike in migrant deaths in the coming months due to extreme heat.

BIDEN AND HARRIS ARE TO BLAME FOR THE CRISIS, AND ARE DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT

  • Central American leaders have blamed the crisis squarely on Biden’s open border policies. 
    • Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei: “The message changed to, we’re going to reunite families and we’re going to reunite children. The very next day the coyotes were here organizing groups of children to take them to the United States.”
    • Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: “Expectations were created that with the government of President Biden there would be a better treatment of migrants. And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so.” 
    • El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said “of course” free healthcare, which the Biden administration supports, is an “incentive” for illegal immigration.  
  • While Biden named Kamala Harris his crisis manager for the border, she has shirked this responsibility, having gone 77 days without visiting the border. 
  • Biden’s FY22 budget would effectively cut funding for the Department of Homeland Security, a disgrace to Customs and Border Protection officers and immigration officials dealing with the crisis.
  • Over $2 billion in money set aside for the border wall is sitting unspent while the busiest migrant area is left wide open.
  • Biden-connected officials are even profiting off this border crisis. 
    • A Biden transition team official working on border issues simultaneously advised an organization that received hundreds of millions of dollars in immigration contracts from the Biden administration.