Long before President Joe Biden was sworn into office, the Department of Homeland Security released a monthly number showing how many migrants were arrested for illegally crossing the southern border every month.
These are good data that allow citizens to track not only how many migrants are being arrested but also what country they originally came from and whom they arrived at the border with (by themselves or with a family).
Since COVID began, the data have also shown how many migrants are immediately returned to Mexico under Title 42 and how many are detained and processed under Title 8.
Unfortunately, what the data do not show is how many of those migrants detained under Title 8 are then released into the United States. Many, but not all, of those processed under Title 8 are quickly released into the country. But for a long time, it was impossible to tell how many.
But then, Texas and Missouri sued Biden’s DHS, claiming Biden had no authority to end President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, and even if he did, he did not do so in the proper manner as required by the Administrative Procedure Act.
Since entering an initial judgment for Texas and Missouri in August 2021, the federal court overseeing the case has ordered DHS to file monthly “Status Reports” with the court detailing not only how many migrants are arrested on the southern border each month but also how many of those migrants are then released into the U.S. to go wherever they want.
As of the July 15 status update, the Biden administration has caught and released over 1.3 million migrants into the U.S. That is a population larger than nine U.S. states.
This July, the Supreme Court reversed the lower federal court in part, holding that Biden did have the authority to end Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy. But the court also said it would not rule yet on whether the Biden administration properly followed the Administrative Procedure Act when it ended the policy. Nor did the court rule on whether Biden has the authority to release tens of thousands of migrants into the U.S. on “parole” every month.
Those two questions are still being litigated by the lower court, and in the meantime, Biden’s DHS still has to file status reports informing the court how many migrants he is releasing into the country every month.
The American people should not have to rely on this one court case to get important basic data from the federal government on the southern border. Instead, Congress should make the reporting of these numbers a legal requirement. It could be done as part of the appropriations process. No money for DHS unless they issue these numbers every month.
The federal government has been hiding the data behind the invasion at our southern border for far too long. It is far past time Congress made these disclosures permanent.
