On April 29, CNN reported that more than 20,500 illegal migrants were in CBP custody at the Southwest border — well in excess of capacity — with 7,000 detained in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector alone. That’s remarkable for two reasons: First, DHS expects a surge of migrants once Title 42 ends, but that won’t happen for another 10 days. Second, CNN has finally gotten around to reporting on the disaster at the border. The majority of those RGV migrants are Venezuelan nationals, undermining DHS’ sunny claims about the effectiveness of the “New Border Enforcement Measures” the administration announced in January. Biden’s out of ideas, so it’s up to Congress to act — quickly.
“Border Detention Facilities Reach Capacity Amid Spike in Migrants.” While the CNN article is headlined “Border detention facilities reach capacity amid spike in migrants”, it should be noted that Border Patrol contends its “maximum facility capacity along the Southwest border is approximately 5,000” in FY 2023, down from “approximately 5,600” in FY 2022.
In other words, Border Patrol has not “reached capacity” — it has exceeded capacity, by a factor of four. That’s only going to get worse, given that CNN explains: “There have been around 7,000 daily encounters on the US southern border in recent days, a number expected to rise in the coming weeks”. Thus, Border Patrol is already apprehending 2,000 more migrants daily than it can handle.
The Venezuelan Surge and the Failure of CBP One. CNN quotes Border Patrol’s RGV sector chief, Gloria Chavez, who explained:
I want to say the first two weeks of April, we were averaging about maybe 1,700 Venezuelan nationals entering illegally into the country through that particular area in Brownsville ... . And then two weeks later, towards the end, here the last eight days, we saw an uptick of over 15,000 Venezuelans.
The reporter should have asked some follow-up questions, because the first part of Chief Chavez’s statement is a little vague. Brownsville Station is an outpost in the RGV sector, so were all the sector’s Venezuelans crossing exclusively there? What about the other eight stations? And were 1,700 of them apprehended in “that particular area” in a two-week period on average, or daily?
In any event, 15,000 Venezuelans nationals coming through Brownsville, Texas, in one eight-day period is a lot, and by “a lot” I mean more than three times as many Venezuelans as were apprehended by Border Patrol agents along the entire Southwest border in the 14-year period between FY 2007 and FY 2020 combined (3,908).
Admittedly, Venezuela is suffering economically right now, but then the country has been under the deleterious yoke of chavismo for more than two decades. They are coming now in response to two factors: President Biden’s feckless “non-detention” policies, and the fact that the Mexican government has, until recently, refused to accept Venezuelans expelled under Title 42.
Biden’s January 5 “New Border Enforcement Actions” were meant to tackle this flood of illegal Venezuelan entrants in three different ways.
First, the president explained that he would continue a program, implemented in October, to allow nationals of that country to apply for two-year grants of “parole” in the United States in lieu of entering illegally (if they were caught coming across the border, they were barred), and to expand it to nationals of Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba, as well.
The program enables up to 30,000 nationals of those four countries per month to enter the United States for two-year periods on parole. Twenty states have filed suit in federal court in Texas v. DHS to stop that blatantly illegal plan, but it’s still in effect.
Second, the White House explained, Mexico had agreed to accept up to 30,000 nationals of those four countries who were apprehended entering illegally and expelled under Title 42. I assume that this agreement is also still in effect.
Third, the administration announced that it would allow would-be illegal migrants to apply for interviews at the Southwest border ports of entry using the CBP One app, again in lieu of entering illegally.
Shortly after those “New Enforcement Actions” were announced, I explained that the CBP One app plan, in particular, would do nothing to deter smugglers or to ameliorate the suffering of the migrants, and also that it would break down under the sheer weight of the migrants who would attempt to use it.
And I was right. According to CNN:
Many of the Venezuelans who have crossed into Brownsville illegally had been waiting across the border in Matamoros, Mexico, and have been trying to get appointments through the CBP One app, [Chief] Chavez said.
The application allows migrants to get appointments to enter the US legally through a port of entry under an exception to Title 42. But appointments are hard to come by and migrants are apparently losing patience.
This is hardly “news” given that my colleague Todd Bensman reported these issues in early February, nor should I give myself too much credit — any objective observer should have seen it coming.
Plainly, Biden’s speechwriters don’t fall into that category, because in his February 7 State of the Union address, the president exclaimed: “Since we launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97%.”
Not that those speechwriters were alone. On January 25, DHS public affairs issued a press release captioned “Unlawful Southwest Border Crossings Plummet Under New Border Enforcement Measures”, in which they crowed:
Preliminary numbers from January show that encounters of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans crossing unlawfully between ports of entry at the southwest border declined 97% compared to December. Encounters with individuals from these countries dropped from a 7-day average of 3,367 per day on December 11, to a seven-day average of just 115 on January 24. The decline in encounters from those populations occurred even as encounters of other noncitizens are returning to customary levels after a typical seasonal decline over the holidays.
Neither Biden’s State of the Union claims nor that DHS press release have aged well. The administration should heed the wise counsel of Abraham Lincoln, who in response to similarly optimistic claims by his own team in April 1863 remarked, “the hen is the wisest of all of the animal creation because she never cackles until the egg is laid".
How Much Worse Will the Border Get? Keep that in mind in the days ahead, and also remember that most of the estimates the American people have received up to this point about the future state of the border came from the same cheery Pollyannas who claimed in the middle of the winter they had brought the situation there under control.
The Biden administration created this fiasco by ditching every Trump-era border proposal that had brought a semblance of control to the Southwest border and reimplementing “catch and release”, and then by arbitrarily ending Title 42 during a period of the year that illegal migration hits its peak.
Right now, the administration is playing catch-up in a desperate attempt to hide its failures at the border. Few if any of its efforts are legally sanctioned, but none of them will work, either.
Congress has given the administration the tools it needs to end this madness, but the White House refuses to use them. That means it’s now incumbent on Congress to force the issue, and it has two primary levers that it can bring to bear: appropriations and impeachment.
Two separate members of the House have already filed impeachment resolutions against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but Congress has not taken them up yet. I am not saying that Mayorkas should be impeached (the Democratic-controlled Senate would likely refuse to convict him), but leadership may want to turn up the temperature a little.
As for appropriations, DHS’s border response in the coming weeks will likely require either a reprogramming of existing funds from within the department’s massive $175.15 billion budget or a supplemental request for additional money.
Either would give the House GOP the opportunity to extract a shift in the administration’s border policies, a supplemental more so than a reprogramming.
Of course, Biden has wrecked the border so effectively and the looming disaster there is so large that the president will complain that any delay in simply forking over the cash would be tantamount to hanging agents out to dry. White House policies have already left agents in the lurch, however, and if they don’t change precipitously and expeditiously, even a massive infusion of money won’t help much.
The border is quickly devolving into utter chaos, but how much worse will it get? Much worse, unless the administration and Congress act quickly. Biden’s fresh out of ideas, however, which makes it more incumbent on Capitol Hill to start offering some of their own — and fast.