by Bethany Blankley
There were more than 205,000 illegal border crossers apprehended in June, according to new U.S. Customs and Border Protection data released on Monday.
June’s numbers bring the total number of illegal border crossers this fiscal year to more than 2.4 million.
The majority of illegal border crossers were apprehended at the southwest border last month, totaling more than 130,000. Fiscal year to date, more than 1.82 million were apprehended at the southwest border.
At the northern border, more than 17,700 were apprehended last month, the greatest number apprehended for the month of June in U.S. history. Nearly 145,000 have been apprehended at the northern border this fiscal year.
The fiscal year goes from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
The overwhelming majority of illegal border crossers were single adults, as they have been every month. Fiscal year through June, more than one million single adults illegally entered the country, according to the data. The next greatest number of illegal border crossers for the fiscal year totals nearly 700,000 of individuals claiming to be in a family unit.
When reporting the data, CBP said, “Border Patrol encounters between ports of entry were 29% lower than in May 2024 and were the lowest monthly total for the Border Patrol along the southwest border since January 2021 as well as lower than the number of encounters between ports of entry in June 2019.”
U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., disagreed, arguing last month’s numbers were just “another month, another devastating number of inadmissible aliens entering and being released into the United States – all at the invitation of President Biden and now-impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.”
Green led the charge to impeach Mayorkas on grounds he failed to secure the border. Mayorkas in February was the first sitting cabinet member to be impeached in U.S. history, The Center Square reported.
CBP official Troy Miller said the decrease in illegal border crossings was due to “recent border security measures” that made “a meaningful impact on our ability to impose consequences for those crossing unlawfully.”
Miller is performing the duties of commissioner after CBP’s former commissioner, Chris Magnus, was forced to resign in November 2022 after being on the job for 11 months. Magnus resigned after being widely criticized for his handling of an influx of illegal border crossers and after numerous officials complained, including the Arizona Sheriff’s Association, which had warned that he was unqualified and opposed his nomination, The Center Square reported.
Miller claimed because of a new rule issued by Mayorkas, the number of encounters at the southwest border decreased by more than 50% in the past six weeks.
But Green and others argue that, because of new parole programs Mayorkas created, monthly encounters at ports of entry of foreign nationals with no lawful basis to enter increased exponentially under the Biden administration, from nearly 20,000 in January 2021 to more than 117,000 in June 2024.
The total number, which has traditionally measured entry between ports of entry and at ports of entry, does not fully reflect the number of foreign nationals illegally entering the country because of the parole programs, critics argue. Hundreds of thousands have been flown in using a newly created CBP One mobile app, for example.
Nearly 42,000 foreign nationals were brought into the country last month through the app, according to CBP data. Since it was launched in January 2023, more than 680,500 foreign nationals used it to schedule appointments and arrive at ports of entry.
The Biden administration strategy “should now be plain to everyone: flood the country with as many illegal aliens as possible between ports of entry, and then create unlawful mass-parole programs like CBP One and CHNV to encourage otherwise-inadmissible aliens to still enter – just in a less politically embarrassing and damaging way,” Green said.
In addition to the app, Mayorkas also created and expanded parole programs (CHNV) specifically to allow Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals to enter the country who under the law are not permitted to enter. So far, “about 494,799” arrived on commercial flights and were granted parole through the CHNV parole process, according to CBP data.
They include 106,757 Cubans, 205,026 Haitians, 93,325 Nicaraguans, and 118,706 Venezuelans who were “vetted and authorized for travel,” CBP says. Among them, 104,130 Cubans, 194,027 Haitians, 86,101 Nicaraguans, and 110,541 Venezuelans were granted parole and released into the U.S.
The CHNV parole process has been directly linked to violent crimes being committed against Americans, as reports indicate those being released were not being properly vetted, if at all, The Center Square reported. Despite CBP’s claims, DHS Inspector General reports found Border Patrol agents weren’t vetting everyone apprehended and released and ICE agents weren’t detaining them.
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Bethany Blankley is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by John Modlin.
