The Border Patrol recorded more than 1.7 million encounters with migrants illegally crossing the southern border in 2023. Of these, over 824,000 were released into the country's interior, with future court appearances scheduled. This data does not include figures for December. To put this in perspective, Yankee Stadium can accommodate 46,537 people, as per Ticketmaster.
In addition to the surge in illegal immigration, federal authorities at the southern border confiscated over 229,000 pounds of drugs, including approximately 22,000 pounds of fentanyl.
Comparatively, during the Obama and Trump administrations, the number of encounters with illegal immigrants did not exceed one million in any single year, according to federal data.
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Reflecting on the situation, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “In retrospect, 2023 at the border was a progressively worse version of 2022.” He criticized President Biden for persisting with failed border policies, leading to an unprecedented rise in illegal immigration. Scott also highlighted the enormous profits made by cartels due to decreased risk, the suspension of legal trade and travel by Customs and Border Protection to reduce custody time for illegal aliens, and the US Border Patrol's decision to shut down checkpoints and deploy nearly no proactive patrols.
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January 02, 2024
Scott further criticized Biden's response to the crisis, stating, “Biden’s only response was to send Mayorkas and Blinken to Mexico and asks them to control their border.”
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Tom Homan, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director during the Trump administration, pointed the finger at the Biden administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
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Homan told the DCNF, “We are almost three years into this administration and they continue to break records. Historic records of illegal crossings along with historic migrant deaths on US soil, historic number of terror watch list crossings, a record number of women and children being sex trafficked, and a record number of young Americans being poisoned by fentanyl that flows across the open border.”
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The House Homeland Security Committee is reportedly preparing to conduct impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas early in the new year, according to a committee staffer. Homan added, “The Biden Administration is breaking records everyday and none of them are good. Enough. Time to impeach Mayorkas. No more excuses. This country needs action now.”
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Despite the record influx of illegal migrants across the southern border, ICE has left thousands of detention beds vacant, as per a previous review of agency data by the DCNF. As of December 11, ICE had an average of seven individuals in custody each day at its processing center in Adelanto, California, where there is bed space for 640 people. Court orders have limited ICE’s use of bed space in the California facility to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
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J.J. Carrell, a former deputy patrol agent in charge for Border Patrol, warned the DCNF that the situation is likely to deteriorate further in the coming year. “We have never experienced this type of invasion in the history of America,” Carrell said. “And when you look at the totality of the data, I believe that when we look back on 2023 from the viewpoint of 2024, I think 2023 is gonna look tame, and that’s scary. I think that should scare America.”