For a second month straight, over 200,000 migrants crossed into the United States illegally at our southern border. At this pace, close to 2 million illegal immigrants will have been apprehended this fiscal year and well over 2 million migrants will have crossed by year’s end, far surpassing recent years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released new numbers on border apprehensions at the southern border for August. Again, they are alarming. Nearly 209,000 people were apprehended in August which is down slightly from 213,000 in July — the only hint of good news. 

Here are more numbers:

  • 49% of apprehensions were single adults (103,000), down 7% from July
  • Nearly 19,000 apprehended were unaccompanied children, down slightly from July
  • Nearly 6,500 apprehended were family units, a 4% increase over July
  • 44% of migrants were expelled from the U.S. because of Title 42. This public health measure was put in place under the Trump administration due to the pandemic. It has led to many single adults and some families to be expelled, but the Biden administration has not expelled unaccompanied minors or families with young kids.

White House hypocrisy 

There is no way for the Biden administration to spin this immigration problem and the crisis at our southern border as anything other than “unsustainable” as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the situation. If you remember, in leaked audio Mayorkas admitted that they were losing to the surge of crossings:

A couple of days ago I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, if, if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable. We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it.

He’s right. 

Title 42 has been the saving grace against the surge of migrants at the southern border. Yet, that has not stopped a surge in COVID-positive migrants.

White Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted the hypocrisy of the Biden administration’s lax southern border policy as it pertains to the pandemic, but tightened restrictions on Americans through the new vaccine mandate. Here’s an exchange she had had with Fox News’s Peter Ducey:

Q [Ducey]: Okay.  And then why is it that you’re trying to require anybody with a job or anybody who goes to school to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but you’re not requiring that of migrants that continue walking across the southern border into the country?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, look, our objective is to get as many people vaccinated across the country as humanly possible.  And so the President’s announcement yesterday was an effort to empower businesses, to give businesses the tools to protect their workforces.  That’s exactly what we did. 

But certainly, we want everybody to get vaccinated.  And more people who are vaccinated, whether they are migrants or whether they are workers, protects more people in the United States.

​​Q [Ducey]: But it’s a requirement for people at a business with more than 100 people, but it’s not a requirement for migrants at the southern border.  Why?

MS. PSAKI:  That’s correct.

White House Press Briefing Transcript 9.10.21

That was it. President Biden is treating American citizens and residents worse than he is treating migrants crossing illegally into our country. It’s unfair and unacceptable.

A record year for border crossings

To date, 1.5 million (1,541,000) people have been apprehended at the southern border. This is a massive number and far surpasses total apprehensions in recent years. 

If the pace of over 200,000 apprehensions per month continues in September, we may end the fiscal year with about 1.7 million migrants apprehended. This is over four times as many people apprehended in 2020 (400,000) and 2018 (396,000), over five times as many as were apprehended in 2017 (303,000), and twice as many as apprehended in 2019 (851,000). 

No wonder Mayorkas called the numbers of border crossings “unsustainable.”

The administration is planning to fail

The saying goes that you either fail to plan or plan to fail. When President Biden took office in January, there were just 78,000 border apprehensions in line with the previous few months. Immediately, the numbers spiked to 100,000 in February and have not dipped below since. 

On day one, President Biden set about reversing Trump-era immigration policies, which he considered cruel, that were holding back the surge of migrants. While the COVID-10 pandemic likely dissuaded many migrants from journeying to America last year, the downward trend goes back to the summer of 2019. 

The Biden administration has sent the signal that America is open to illegal migration. He and Vice President Kamala Harris may say “don’t come,” but their actions speak louder than words. Not turning away minors and still accepting some individuals and families offers migrants and human traffickers the prospect of success. The surges have not stopped since he took office, and sent the administration scrambling to mitigate the disaster they created by opening facilities to house kids and shuffling COVID-positive people around the country. This was totally expected and avoidable. 

Instead of undoing what they undid, except for Title 42, they are stubbornly pushing ahead and pretending that there is no public health crisis, public safety crisis, or humanitarian crisis at the southern border.

In January, they were failing to plan. Now, they are simply planning to fail. And failing they are.