May Border Crossings Smash DHS Record

Research

Illegal Border Crossings Totaled Nearly 240,000 In May, The Highest Amount For A Single Month In DHS History

BIDEN CAUSED THE WORST MONTH AT THE BORDER IN DHS HISTORY

In May, 239,416 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, making this the highest one-month total in DHS history.
- It’s a 32 percent increase over last May, and a 300 percent increase from the average number of May apprehensions during the Trump administration.
- 14,699 unaccompanied children were apprehended.
- 112,701 illegal immigrants were apprehended from countries outside the Northern Triangle and Mexico, showing that Biden’s crisis is global.
- 50 migrants on the terror watchlist have been apprehended trying to enter the U.S. between ports of entry since the fiscal year began in October.
More than 3.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Biden took office.
- This includes the 2.9 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection has apprehended and the more than 600,000 gotaways that have escaped into the U.S. undetected.
- The number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. has increased by more than 10 percent since Biden took office to more than 11.6 million.
Biden has doubled down on his plan to end Title 42, the successful Trump-era removal policy that helped secure the border.
- The Biden administration is actively fighting in court to end Title 42, appealing a decision by a federal judge who blocked the move.

DRUGS POUR OVER THE BORDER AND CRIME IS SURGING

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.
- 1,101 pounds of deadly fentanyl and 10,528 pounds of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in May 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 May is the equivalent of more than 249 million lethal doses.
In 2021, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. reached an all-time high, up 17 percent from the year prior.
- Opioid-related deaths due primarily to fentanyl caused three-quarters of these drug overdose deaths last year.
In just two days in the El Centro sector, 90 packages of methamphetamine worth over $100,000 were seized.
In Nogales, Arizona, border agents seized more than 390,000 fentanyl pills, “enough fentanyl to kill millions.”
In recent weeks, border agents in the Rio Grande sector have arrested more than 44 gang members attempting to enter the U.S., with many more likely entering undetected.
In Arizona, human smugglers are so emboldened they are sneaking illegal immigrants across a U.S. Army base, causing more than $75,000 in damage to the base in the last year.

BIDEN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Despite Biden’s promise of a “fair and humane immigration system,” his open border policies aren’t compassionate; they are deadly.
In Tucson, Arizona, 20 illegal immigrants, including two unaccompanied children, were crammed into the bed of a pickup truck and smuggled across the U.S. border.
Border agents in the El Centro sector rescued a woman dropped from the top of a 30-foot border wall by human smugglers.
- Border agents in El Centro have rescued nearly 180 illegal immigrants since October 2021.
In Encinal, Texas, more than 111 illegal immigrants were apprehended after being smuggled into the U.S. in a tractor trailer without food or water, resulting in two deaths.
Last week in Catarina, Texas, an illegal immigrant was found dead among a group of more than 60 illegal immigrants that were packed into a dump truck.
In Harlingen, Texas, 88 illegal immigrants including three children were found locked in a refrigerated trailer with no means of escape.
Last week in Yuma, Arizona, Border Patrol agents found the body of a five-year old girl who drowned attempting to cross into the U.S. after being separated from her mother.
- Illegal immigrant drownings are becoming more common in Del Rio, Texas, with four bodies found in just a 10-day span.
The humanitarian crisis has gotten so dire the Biden administration is now considering a plan to use taxpayer dollars to transport illegal immigrants to Los Angles, Houston, and Dallas to provide relief to border towns.
- This comes as the Biden administration has flown hundreds of unaccompanied children from the border to airports across the U.S. for more than a year.

BIDEN HAS ABANDONED BORDER PATROL AGENTS

The Biden administration has abandoned the Border Patrol, with agents left feeling “demonize[d].”
The Biden administration is planning on punishing Border Patrol agents who were falsely accused of “whipping” migrants last year, despite an investigation finding no criminal conduct occurred.
Even DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged that “the morale in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the Border Patrol, is low. There is no question.”
- A Border Patrol agent in Arizona: “Agents are afraid of ending up on the news for doing their job or getting in trouble for doing their job. There is no morale.”
- A second agent in Arizona: “People are pretty much fed up with how this administration is treating Border Patrol agents because all we've been doing this whole time is what they've told us to do, which is really bad policy.”
- A third agent from Texas: “It feels like we're committing a crime by allowing all these people into our country.”
Now, as many as 4,000 Border Patrol agents could be terminated for not receiving a COVID vaccine without any option for reasonable accommodations.
- One agent who has not received a response to his accommodation request said it “was expressed to us in at least 25 emails — that we would receive disciplinary action up to termination” if agents did not comply with the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.
Biden is neglecting border agents who risk their lives every day, as was shown tragically in April when Texas National Guard member Bishop Evans died attempting to rescue illegal migrants crossing the Rio Grande.

BIDEN’S OPEN BORDER POLICIES CREATED THIS CRISIS

Biden’s failed policies created the crisis at the southern border.
- In Biden’s first 100 days he took more than 94 executive actions on immigration, including halting construction of the border wall and ending the Trump administration’s successful “Remain in Mexico” policy.
- Illegal immigrants are thanking Biden for his weak immigration policies, saying they “didn’t even want to try” crossing the border when Trump was president.
- Thousands of migrants are gathering at the border because they believe that under Biden “the border is open.”
- The Biden administration has spent $72 million of taxpayer money in shutdown costs to avoid building the border wall.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that 62 percent of Americans believe U.S. immigration policy is headed in the wrong direction under Biden.
- A Morning Consult poll found 49 percent of Hispanic voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration.
- A new Fox News poll found Republicans have a 19 point advantage over Democrats as the party that will better address border security.