Over two million people have been apprehended while attempting to enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border this fiscal year.

This new high level of illegal crossings adds fresh evidence that the southern border is not closed as Vice President Harris claims. The border security apparatus is overwhelmed, and border towns and states are forced to absorb tens of thousands of new people each day. The impact of so many illegal migrants in one area presents a heavy burden on public resources as well as a challenge to public safety.

In addition, there’s a new problem at the southern border. The fastest-growing group of illegal migrants is coming from failed socialist states. It’s time to ensure our border is closed and that includes figuring out how to deal with the problem of migrants who are able to bypass expulsion measures to gain entrance to the U.S.

What’s happening

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) just released shocking new data. In the month of August, 203,597 migrant encounters occurred at the U.S.–Mexico border, a 1.7% increase compared to July. That brings the total number of encounters with illegal immigrants at the Southwest Border to 2,150,244 for the fiscal year 2022. If this pace of migrant encounters continues in September, the fiscal year will end with a whopping 2.3 million encounters.

Migrant encounters involve individuals who have been apprehended or taken into custody to await adjudication and those who have been expelled immediately to their home country or last country of transit. 

Not included in this accounting are migrants who have gained entrance into the country illegally without being contacted by border security agents although they were spotted (known as gotaways) as well as those who are totally unknown by border patrol. The Department of Homeland Security recorded over half a million gotaways in 2022, but that number could be higher.

In addition, at least one in five people apprehended in August were repeat crossers. Some 22 percent of individuals apprehended had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months. 

The border is wide open and the world is flocking to it

Illegal crossings are out of control and the effective open southern border has become a magnet for people from around the world. 

August apprehensions under the Biden Administration represent a 329% increase from the average number of August apprehensions during the Trump administration according to the Republican National Committee.

The primary countries of origin for new illegal immigrants are no longer Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), but Latin American nations facing the harsh results of failed socialist policies. 

Since 2015, some seven million Venezuelans (one out of five) fled the economic hardship brought on by socialism and relocated to other South American countries including Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Chile. However, after the pandemic left those nations in economic disarray, Venezuelan migrants began to migrate to the U.S. seeking asylum.

According to BP Commissioner Chris Magnus: 

Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border.

Our dedicated teams of skilled agents continue to work around the clock to secure our border and safely and humanely process and vet every individual encountered, but those fleeing repressive regimes pose significant challenges for processing and removal.

The new hurdle in dealing with illegal migrants from these other nations is that because the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with them, expelling migrants from these countries is not possible. Venezuelans have escaped expulsion under the Title 42 health measure because the U.S. has no diplomatic ties with them, and Mexico refuses to accept their migrants.

The signal has been sent worldwide that now is the time to come to the U.S. southern border. It’s not surprising that people in other nations are flocking there.

Sanctuary cities are no sanctuary after all

As the governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida fly migrants from border states to sanctuary cities such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard, the vacation destination of the elites, they are finding that they are not welcome.

Democratic mayors are crying out against the burden on public resources that these migrants pose. They decry the governors who are sending the migrants to their declared sanctuary cities, but refusing ti hold accountable the Biden administration for failing to expel migrants rather than allowing them to stay int he U.S.

“We’re not a border town,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters. “We don’t have an infrastructure to handle this type of and level of immigration to our city. … We’re not Texas.”

Mayor Bowser may be right that D.C. does not have the infrastructure to manage a few bus loads of migrants, but those dozens of migrants aren’t even one percentage of the two millions migrants who have entered the U.S. illegally at the southern border.

Bottom Line

It’s disheartening to think of the struggles that these migrants face, particularly those from failed socialist nations. Whether their individual cases warrant asylum protections remains to be seen. Desiring more opportunities and a better life are admirable goals that motivate many people who lawfully make the U.S. their home. However, they should not be a free pass for those who bypass the legal process to enter our country illegally.

The failures of socialism that many migrants now run from should be a cautionary tale to radical leftist lawmakers that we should not be implementing the same policies here or else we face similar fates.