Latest border encounter numbers expose Biden’s ports of entry bait-and-switch

As expected, the Biden administration has started using its port
parole program
shell game
to feign “lawfulness” and distract from the true numbers of illegal aliens entering the U.S. each month.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday reported the lowest number of
southwest land border encounters
since January 2022. Taken at face value, that may look like progress. The full picture, however, shows that as southwest land border illegal-alien encounters trended downward in January and February after the rollout of the unlawful port
parole program
and the CBP One app, the number of
nationwide inadmissible alien encounters
at ports of entry is steadily rising. In fact, CBP’s February
Office of Field Operations inadmissible alien encounters
at ports of entry were 82,365, more than four times greater than in February 2021 and more than double the number in February 2022.

These ports of entry encounters are steadily rising because the administration has directed would-be illegal aliens of numerous nationalities to use the CBP One app to make an appointment at a port of entry, where they will be paroled into the country. Thus, the same illegal aliens who would otherwise be attempting to cross between ports of entry are being shifted directly to them.

The administration calls this process a “lawful pathway,” but mass paroling tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens through the ports make neither the process, nor the aliens using it, lawful. In fact, the executive branch does
not have the constitutional authority
to provide this visalike benefit to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.

To prevent difficult questions stemming from the bad optics of sustained, historic levels of border encounters, the administration is hoping interested Americans will only look at the southwest land border encounters, rather than looking at nationwide encounters—and in particular, the Office of Field Operations numbers.

With the administration using ports to process and parole en masse, and now, larger numbers of illegal aliens crossing the northern border between the ports of entry, nationwide encounters—with Office of Field Operations numbers included—provide the most accurate picture of the number of known illegal aliens entering the U.S. during any given month.

The border crisis will continue so long as the policies of this administration are in place. The goal of this administration is clear: Encourage
asylum fraud
and
use and abuse
parole to
process
and release more aliens into the country quickly,
ensure
they are
never removed
, providing mass de facto amnesty while demanding actual amnesty from Congress.

Meanwhile, even officials such as the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, Raul Ortiz, are admitting the failures of President Joe Biden’s border and immigration policy. In a
congressional hearing
on Wednesday, Ortiz made a few consequential
statements
that ran counter to the Biden administration’s typical talking points and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ claims.

In addition to going against Mayorkas’ previous
statements under oath
claiming we have operational control of the border, Ortiz admitted that known got-aways are probably 10% to 20% higher than reported, that
fentanyl
is indeed coming into the U.S. between ports of entry, and that CBP’s duties now require a “processing enterprise,” as more aliens are encountered and released into the U.S.

This is not the only example of CBP personnel, especially Border Patrol agents, speaking out against the Biden administration’s reckless policies. Last year, agents
confronted
Mayorkas directly about being pulled off the border to process illegal aliens, with one agent physically turning his back on the DHS chief and stating that Mayorkas turned his back on them first.

Agents have reported feeling
abandoned
by their leadership under the Biden administration and
overwhelmed
by the border crisis. Ortiz himself has
said
that agency “morale is at an all-time low.” The men and women on the ground know this administration is putting our nation at risk.

Despite CBP being strained and
thrown under the bus
repeatedly, Biden and Mayorkas continue full speed ahead with their CBP parole program, the latest installment of a dangerous border policy, and their lies to the American public. This administration disregards our nation’s laws and national security at the expense of their political agenda, and must be held
accountable
by
Congress
and the
states
through the legal system.

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This article originally appeared in the Daily Signal and is reprinted with kind permission from the Heritage Foundation.