CBP Releases Border Numbers for August

CBP yesterday released its statistics on the number of encounters its Border Patrol agents and officers made in the month of August. Illegal migrant apprehensions rose slightly last month, but the real action was at the ports of entry, where encounters of inadmissible applicants for admission (illegal encounters) are running near all-time monthly highs. That’s all part of January 2023 Biden-Harris plan to funnel migrants into the country, away from the prying eyes of the immigration-wary.

Border Patrol Apprehensions at the Southwest Border. In August, Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border apprehended just over 58,000 illegal entrants, a 3 percent increase compared to July, but more importantly (from the administration’s perspective) just a fraction of the nearly 250,000 apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico line in December.

Nearly 61 percent of those apprehensions (35,366) involved nationals of Mexico and the “root causes” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, each of which is a traditional migrant-sending nation.

That means that the other 39 percent of those apprehensions involved aliens from somewhere else, including more than 4,600 Colombians, 1,851 nationals of the People’s Republic of China, and nearly 1,500 Indian nationals.

So far in FY 2024, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 105,000 nationals of Colombia, 22,000 Indians, and 35,000-plus Chinese. Good luck to DHS removing any of them, particular the latter two groups, given that New Delhi and Beijing are notoriously stingy about issuing travel documents to their nationals who have been ordered removed.

CBP Illegal Encounters at the Southwest Border Ports. CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) has jurisdiction over the ports of entry, and in August its CBP officers encountered more than 47,700 migrants who lacked proper entry documents or were otherwise inadmissible at the Southwest border ports.

That’s a 1.76 percent increase compared to July, but more importantly it’s 160 percent more Southwest border port encounters than in August 2022, and more than three times the encounters there in August 2021.

The CBP One App Port Interview Scheme. Which is how the Biden-Harris administration wants it. Let me explain.

Faced with an overwhelming surge of more than 222,000 illegal migrants in December 2022, the White House announced in January 2023 that it would begin allowing illegal migrants in central and northern Mexico to schedule interviews at the Southwest border ports — despite the fact that they had no admission documents and thus no right to come to the United States — using the CBP One app.

I have dubbed that plan the “CBP One app interview scheme”, and there’s no authorization for it anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). And while the White House “fact sheet” announcing that scheme contends it’s intended to allow illegal migrants to “initiate a protection claim”, CBP officers apparently aren’t asking applicants whether they come seeking asylum.

By May 2023, DHS was making 1,000 CBP One app port appointment slots available daily, but on June 1, 2023, the agency expanded that to 1,250 daily appointment slots. Later that month, the number of daily CBP One port interview appointments was expanded further, to 1,450 — or 529,000-plus planned illegal encounters per year.

And last month CBP began expanding access to the scheme to “other than Mexican” (OTM) illegal migrants in the Guatemalan border states of Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico (Mexican nationals can make port appointments from anywhere in the country), effectively moving the U.S. Southwest border to Mexico’s southern one.

Since it was implemented in early January 2023, around 813,000 illegal migrants have scheduled appointments using the app. Nearly 96 percent of all migrants who appear at the ports under this scheme have been released into the United States on “parole” — and are thus immediately eligible for work authorization.

Do the math and you’ll see that’s about 779,000 new workers, even as the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in August.

The CBP stats don’t differentiate between CBP One migrants and other inadmissible aliens who show up at the ports, but given the fact that there were nearly 44,000 CBP One app appointments available in August, it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of those 47,700 illegal encounters at the Southwest border ports last month were thanks to CBP One.

Expect that flow to continue, especially now that the Mexican government has announced it’s busing OTM migrants from the Guatemalan border all the way to the U.S. Southwest border ports (food will be provided).

ICE’s Non-Detained Docket Nearing Eight Million. Reviewing these numbers, as well as more than 32,200 CBP illegal encounters at the coastal and interior airports (most of whom came under Biden-Harris’ fraud-ridden “CHNV parole” program, a story for another day), Bill Melugin from Fox News tweeted:

Note how Melugin put “lawful pathways” in quotes, because that’s how the administration (and most in the media) describe the CBP One app interview scheme and CHNV Parole — despite the fact that the aliens who are paroled under them have no right to be admitted to the country and are facially removable.

Because they are all removable, each of those aliens must be tracked by ICE as best it can. But the fewer than 7,800 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers tasked with keeping tabs on them are already strained in trying to deal with a massive population of non-detained removable aliens, which (as Melugin notes) is expected to hit eight million by the end of the year.

No wonder Vice President (and Democratic presidential candidate) Kamala Harris keeps calling the U.S. immigration system “broken” — though it’s curious that she hasn’t mentioned her administration’s role in breaking it.

Immigration isn’t particularly hard, but the finer details can be hard to grasp. Let me make it simple for you and the media: With a month to go, CBP has already encountered more than two million removable aliens at the Southwest border, and 2.75 million-plus nationwide, in FY 2024 — more than in any year prior to the Biden-Harris administration. At this point, nothing’s going to make it better — for you or ICE.