Almost 200,000 migrants were arrested after crossing the southern border in July. That puts the Border Patrol on track for a record-high 2 million arrests this fiscal year.
However, as bad as that number is, we do not know how many of those migrants were released by President Joe Biden into the United States — and we may never know unless Congress forces Biden to tell us.
By federal court order, for the past 10 months, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has had to file a “status report” detailing how many migrants have been caught and released into the U.S. every month. After the Supreme Court held that Biden has the authority to end former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, the federal court ended the DHS obligation to report those monthly catch-and-release numbers.
It is true that the DHS still reports how many migrants are arrested after illegally crossing the border every month, and it does report how many of them are returned to Mexico through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 authority. But we have no idea how many of the rest of the migrants not processed through Title 42 were caught and released into the U.S.
For example, in April of this year, 234,088 migrants were arrested illegally crossing the southern border, and 96,908 were returned to Mexico through Title 42. Of the 137,180 other migrants processed by Border Patrol that month, 117,989, or about 86%, were released into the U.S. to go wherever they wanted. But last month, of the 115,143 migrants arrested but not returned to Mexico through Title 42, just 79,652, or about 70%, were released into the U.S.
Of the 125,403 migrants arrested on the southern border but not expelled by Title 42, how many did Biden release into the country? Was it about 86%, or 107,000? Or was it closer to 70% and just 87,000? We don’t know. And we shouldn’t expect Biden to tell us voluntarily.
There are other concerns, such as inflation, in which Biden’s policies are more unpopular with the public than immigration. But on no other issue has the public disagreed with Biden longer than on immigration. As soon as he came into office, Biden ended Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and significantly weakened the CDC’s Title 42 policy. The result was an immediate and steep rise in arrests for illegal border crossing, and as word has spread throughout the world that Biden is releasing tens of thousands of migrants into the U.S. every month, those numbers have only gotten worse.
Biden’s open border policies are extremely unpopular with the nation as a whole and with Hispanics in Texas, in particular. Asked by Harvard University if “people who cross the border with Mexico illegally should be turned back to Mexico,” as was Trump’s policy, or “released into the US with a court date,” Biden’s policy, 71% of voters nationally chose the Trump policy.
Asked by Echelon Insights which “immediate approach would you prefer to solve the situation along the Southern border,” 57% of Hispanic Texans chose “increasing border security measures to stop illegal migrants from crossing.” Just 27% chose “allowing more illegal migrants to seek asylum in the United States.”
Democratic voters in blue cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York City are just beginning to feel the same pain from Biden’s border crisis that Texans along the southern border have been feeling for 18 months now. Biden can’t ignore the crisis he created forever. Eventually, he will be held accountable. Until then, Congress should do everything it can to shed light on the problem, including demanding that the DHS resume publishing its catch-and-release data every month.
There is a government funding deadline coming up at the end of September. Congress needs to appropriate funds, and it should force DHS to report on how many migrants it is releasing into the country every month. That is the least the agency can do in return for funding.
