By Ira Mehlman
FAIR
The Department of Homeland Security last week released the nationwide border encounter figures for the month of September, closing the books on Fiscal Year 2024. Encounters of illegal aliens entering the U.S. in FY 2024 totaled 2,901,142, making 2024 the second worst year in U.S. history for illegal immigration, topped only by fiscal year 2023.
While 2024 is slightly down from 2023, the small decline in encounters of illegal aliens attempting to enter the country is hardly something to celebrate. More than 2.9 million encounters is still greater than the population of Chicago and five times greater than the 646,822 encounters in FY 2020, the last full year before the Biden-Harris administration took office.
Moreover, the overall decline in encounters, particularly along the southwest border, had more to do with policy decisions made in Mexico City than those made in Washington, D.C. During the final months of FY 2024, the outgoing administration of President Lopez-Obrador stepped up efforts to intercept illegal migrants heading to the U.S., and returned those caught in northern Mexico to the southern regions of that country.
In other words, the Biden-Harris administration essentially outsourced U.S. border security to Mexico in advance of the 2024 election – policies that can be reversed at any time that the government of Mexico chooses. Meanwhile, U.S.-bound migrants remain in Mexico in anticipation that the Mexican government will remove the band-aid once the U.S. elections are behind us. Already, a migrant caravan, estimated to be 2,000 strong, is traveling from southern Mexico towards the U.S. border. Migrants are telling news outlets that they are concerned that if Donald Trump is elected President on Nov. 5, he will take action to close the border. Conversely, if Kamala Harris is elected, they will be allowed to cross freely.
The declines recorded in the latter months of FY 2024 also reflect the temporary halt to the illegal Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela (CHNV) parole program that allows 30,000 illegal aliens a month to fly directly into the U.S., rather than attempt to cross illegally into the U.S. through Mexico. That program was temporarily suspended due to massive fraud, exposed by FAIR, that the Department of Homeland Security attempted to conceal from the American public.
The focus of the Biden-Harris administration in FY 2024 was eliminating the harmful political optics of mass illegal immigration, not putting a stop to mass illegal immigration. Declines in illegal crossings along the southwest border were offset by sharp increases along the northern border and dramatic increases in illegal aliens being permitted to enter the country through ports of entry. In addition to the restarted CHNV program, the administration continued its unprecedented abuse of parole authority to allow inadmissible aliens who schedule an appointment using the CBP One phone app to be ushered into the country.
This massive, deceptive and illegal effort by the administration to redirect illegal aliens through ports of entry has done nothing to mitigate the impact of mass illegal immigration on the American public and the communities in which they live. Whether illegal aliens enter between ports of entry, or at ports of entry, rampant illegal immigration in FY 2024 continued to threaten the safety and security of the American people and impose unsustainable burdens on American taxpayers.
