The Most Apprehensions in American History

April shattered border apprehension numbers - they were the most in U.S. history. What is the state of the southern border, and will President Biden do anything to address the crisis?

Show Notes

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The Federation for American Immigration Reform's podcast bringing you the most important updates about U.S. immigration. Featuring special guests including members of Congress, journalists, and experts in the field.

Preston:
in april customs and border protection encountered 234,088 individuals at the southwest border that is the highest number in american history it reflects the ongoing crisis at our border which has raged since joe biden became president under the biden administration border patrol has encountered over 2.8 million illegal aliens in 16 months and worst of all while this crisis rages on the biden administration is doing everything in its power to make it worse through executive action and agency decision making hello and welcome back to fair's understanding immigration podcast this is preston huennekens fair's government relations manager and I’m joined today by jason peña from fair’s research department today we're going to discuss two major pieces of immigration news first the record-breaking numbers at the southern border in april and second the biden administration's court battle with 20 plus states over the end of the use of title 42 at the border so jason let's get the ball rolling and talk about these april numbers what are we seeing here

Jason:
it's good to be here preston to know americans shock at this point cbp has encountered another record-breaking number of illegal aliens at the southern border but I guess what some of our audience members may be surprised to hear that this the cbp encountered more than 234,000 illegal aliens for context this is the most this is the highest number of illegal aliens recorded in american history going back so again also this is also the fourth time under the biden administration where encounters or apprehensions as they were formerly called surpass the 200,000 figure mark so again and again we're seeing that our border security mechanisms or what's left of them aren't fully aren't fully stemming the tide against the surge of illegal aliens trying to get into the united states just some quick fast facts on these numbers of the more than 234,000 encounters 96,000 were expelled under the title 42 emergency health protocol which was given to president trump by the cdc at the onset of the pandemic and more than 137,000 were subjected to title eight which is your standard removal from the united states another thing so since I’m sorry it's just so hard for me to go through these numbers knowing that how have we gotten to this point how have we gotten to this point where the federal government has completely abdicated its duty in trying and securing the border and trying to keep trying to minimize the flow of illegal aliens so as of fy 2022 the biden administration has released 950,000 illegal aliens into the country folks you heard that number correctly 950,000 okay now to put this into perspective that figure is just it's just it surpasses the population of fort worth texas so if you can imagine the city of fort worth and its population that's how many illegal aliens have been released into the country going forward with may coming up it's important to note that during the warmer months of the year that's when illegal alien encounters tend to spike just because of the just because of the climate itself now there's been an ongoing battle with and we'll get to in a moment on whether on the preservation of title 42 and it should be shocked no one that if title if and when title 42 is officially ended we can expect to see another record-breaking feat on the southern border preston your let's get your thoughts on this I mean we're right now we're battling an administration that refuses to do anything to secure the border and to just add fuel to the fire they're like you know we're going to take away one of the few measures that not only is helping out border agents at the border but it's also it's also preserving public health I mean how does an administration go forward with its with its commitment to secure to its coming to safeguard the security and health of its people

Preston:
I’m not sure they have made that commitment because they've done everything in their power to you know really abandon immigration enforcement they've they me on day one they immediately targeted a number of the previous administration's efforts to safeguard the border they got rid of the migrant protection protocols which ended the 2019 crisis and just to get a sense of the numbers you know I remember when the new york times said that the border was at a breaking point when we had over 75,000 apprehensions in one month I remember and now we're seeing over two hundred thirty thousand two hundred twenty thousand that's it just dwarfs what we're seeing what we were seeing back in 2019 but the trump administration gave us the template for how to end that kind of crisis and we saw it was the successful implementation of the remain in mexico program and we saw the trump administration engage with governments in central in south america to you know shore up asylum agreements that allowed individuals to apply for asylum in a different country that was closer to home that didn't involve their having to travel to the united states and it was it was very successful we saw that apprehensions plummeted after that and then they remained low and a lot of that had to do with the covid 19 pandemic but even when you know covid was some somewhat under control those numbers stayed relatively low until biden became president and we see that if you look at cbp's data for every month that joe biden has been president the numbers have increased and have gotten higher and have gotten worse and like you said I think you said there were four times now from four months where under biden apprehensions have been over 200,000 and if I’m if I if my memory serves me right I think there's actually been only one or two months in that 16-month span that he's been in office where apprehensions have been under a hundred thousand so you know we're seeing a new normal under the biden administration of over a hundred thousand apprehensions a month now we're getting to over two hundred thousand and you know unlike the trump administration they're not doing anything to fix it there's no it doesn't seem to be any real rush to fix this and to put into place either new or previously enacted policies to get a handle of this and it's you know it seems like we're kind of you know you know beating a dead horse here but you know unless they're willing to change to change course I don't see how this is going to get any better and in fact like you mentioned because of the summer coming up it's probably going to get much worse

Jason:
you know when we're when we're looking at these astronomical numbers these numbers again for our audience who are unfamiliar with customs and border protection the data that they provide to the public does not include estimated got aways and got aways are illegal aliens who successfully evaded detection or arrests from border patrol agents or other cbp officials the last time I looked that there's an estimated 500,000 got aways since either I think since the beginning of fy 2022 if not before then so we also take into consideration for the illegal aliens who were not encountered by border authorities and released into the country there's already 500,000 more at the at the very least last I checked that are in the interior of the united states I mean honestly that number doesn't really surprise me all that much just because our border agents who are who are from california texas and really border agents who've been pulled from the coast and the northern border they've had their hands busy processing countless foreign nationals that are trying to come into the united states it really makes you wonder if how many how many criminals gang members terrorists are evading authorities and successfully residing in the interior every american should be concerned about this I can't stress that enough

Preston:
that's absolutely right and I think an interesting illustration to think about this is the way that we've seen how the cartels in mexico are profiting off of human trafficking where it has now almost rivaled the profits that they're making from drug trafficking and so what border agents and immigration officials at the southwest border are telling people is what they're seeing is that the cartels will send over a large massive of migrants you know the migrants have paid for them to go over and whatnot and so as they send that large group out border patrol then has to go apprehend these people process them begin that begins the asylum process I mean that's not something that just happens in 20 minutes you know this takes an entire day normally to deal with one large group and then while the border patrol agents are busy processing those migrants what they're telling us is that they know the cartels are sending their drug shipments over in this in the same area in the same sector because they know that they have a better chance of evading you know border patrol other dhs officials the dea because everyone is so busy processing the migrants and that's not to say that this is you know you have to prioritize one or the other obviously you know when there are people you know who might be who might be sick who might be dehydrated you have to deal with that of course but I think it goes to show we do not have enough border patrol agents we don't have enough immigration officials at the border to even come close to dealing with the numbers that we're seeing at the southwest border

Jason:
no not at all and there doesn't seem to be this as you mentioned earlier this pressure to hire additional border agents or other cbp officials in president biden’s dhs budget proposal there was there was a suggestion or a I if you don't even call it that just saying like oh hey we want to hire a few hundred border patrol agents it's like no you need to be hiring a lot more than just a few hundred that's not gonna cut it you know and you know on that on that subject of personnel and staffing at the border you know you can have as many border agents as many cbp officials as you'd like but at the end of the day if you don't have policies in place that prevent these flows from occurring in the first place they might as well just be a catering committee allowing hey we're here to help you against the united states and that's the end of it switching gears a little bit precise and I guess I wanted to shift over to title 42 I know this is something your department has been focusing on quite a bit

Preston:
yeah so again for those listening at home title 42 is a public health order in the u.s. code and it was first implemented in an emergency setting in march 2020 at the beginning of the covid 19 crisis and what this does is it allows border agents to turn away asylum seeking illegal aliens and other illegal aliens who don't claim asylum you know citing that they have a potential to further spread covid 19 in the country and so again this has been in place since march of 2020. border patrol has cited title 42 in turning away about half of all illegal aliens that was a little bit lower this past month where they were using title eight more but in prior months it was about half or over 45% or so but the biden administration decided last month that it wanted to end the use of title 42 at the border even as they extended other pandemic related national emergencies and that's an important distinction here is because first and foremost title 42 is a covid 19 related emergency order and so they're they were trying to end that as it pertained to turning away migrants at the border while at the same time extending a number of the national emergencies that are still in place as we record and so this led a group of 24 states led by louisiana arizona and missouri to sue the bite administration over this decision so jason we now have a recent court ruling in this case could you just tell us what happened

Jason:
of course so on friday may 20th u.s. district judge robert r summerhays ruled that title 42 must stay in place until this lawsuit is resolved you know to go back to what preston said earlier this is the lawsuit that is led by the ag’s of louisiana arizona and missouri so until that's until that is concluded the title 42 will remain in place some context for the legal action being filed by these attorneys general their claim is that it failed to follow the administrative procedure act in the ending of the usage of title 42. judge summerhays granted a temporary restraining order in that case affording the biden administration to stop in their tracks in trying to scrap title 42 indefinitely following that he issued a restraining order to last until may 23rd or until he issued his filing ruling which happened on friday and he also he enjoined the order which means he prohibited the order to end title 42. in addition he had ordered the biden administration to keep records of how the policy is being applied to no surprise the ag's who were behind this effort applauded the decision just as a victory rightfully so because it helped it for what it does title 42 is still holding the line and helping border patrol agents stop the or at least moderately stop the flow of illegal aliens that all being said preston we have to at some point I think we have to look and say look while title 42 has been a very effective tool in slowing the flow of illegal migration we need to have other policies in place because at the end of the day the this is a public health measure you know this is not this is not something that is intended to be a long-term border security measure and that's something that federal lawmakers and other policymakers need to understand that this is not something that okay hey as so long as this as this measures in place everything will be fine no not at all we need to be instituting mpp the asylum agreements with the northern triangle countries of el salvador honduras and guatemala we also need to garner more cooperation from those countries to do their own immigration enforcement I can't I remember during the summer of 2019 when these governments in latin america for the first time in a long time were actually enlisting their or actually making their immigrations do immigration enforcement and many of them enlisted the help of their military to just to stop the flow again well this is definitely a victory for the american people and our sovereignty I think it's important to note that that's we really need to have an honest conversation or at least the biden administration needs to have an honest conversation about what is proper border security what is proper immigration policy it should not be revolving around one cdc protocol that's for sure

Preston:
yeah that's absolutely right and I think it's important to recognize that there will be a day in the future when title 42 comes to an end there's no doubt about that it's like you said it's a public health order and you know we've largely gotten covet under control for the most part you know that's there's obviously you know we obviously hit the 1 million dead mark recently so it's by no means over but it you know the country is returning to normal and at some point title 42 is not going to be used at the border anymore and so I think what we need to do is look at the both existing policies that we have under title eight and the policies that the biden administration ended when it took office and I think you hit the nail on the head with the migrant protection protocols you know the remain in mexico program is a is a great example of that where that not only you know allowed border agents to get control of what's happening at the southern border it also acted as a disincentive for people to come to the border in the first place and I think that is really an important thing to take into consideration here is that you know title eight does not disincentivize people from coming to the border (as we've seen) as we've seen it clearly not enough so you need other measures that do prevent people from getting into the u.s. at all and the remain in mexico program was one of those policies that you know we know that the majority of people applying for asylum don't really have legitimate claims and so those people then made the conscious decision all right I’m not gonna you know try and do this but then it allowed for the people who do have you know merit-based claims to enter the to enter the system they're not being held up by all these other hundreds of thousands of claims that have to work their way through court and so it actually ends up benefiting those people as well which is I think important and again another one that it was ended before it really even got off the ground were the asylum agreements those would have been huge at you know actually pre because you know the definition of asylum is that your government your home government in your home country is persecuting you for a variety of reasons and so you're supposed to be able to apply for asylum in the first safe country you get to and that's what was the basis of those asylum agreements was look if your home government your home country conditions they are not safe for you let's get you somewhere else where you're no longer in your home country but you're close enough to where if conditions change you can return home this and I think that this ended the incentive to treat the asylum process as a way to migrate to the united states for economic reasons which we know is almost entirely the reason people are coming here it's not because you know even though conditions may be bad certainly they're you know their economies are not as developed as the united states there are parts of the u.s. that are safer there are also parts of the us that are significantly not safer than some of these countries we know that and so the idea that people are able to game our asylum system because they want better economic opportunity in the united states is just really you know that's the root of the problem and in addition to you know going back to mpp and going back to these asylum agreements you have to address what is happening in our laws that have allowed people over the past 10-15 years to really use our asylum system as a way to get into the u.s. when they otherwise couldn't

Jason:
shifting over to broader immigration policy you know we talk all about disincentives and how as you as you stated how the mpps and the acas were able to basically essentially turn off that magnet from economic migrants from heading north another policy here that I that I’ve noticed is that while we do need more border agents for sure it goes without saying whether it be under the biden administration or any following administrations I mean another disincentive would be hiring more ice deportation officers now many people associate ice as all they do is deportations but it is actually divided up into two components one is that does immigration enforcement the other that does you know that disrupts enforcement yes exactly narcotics disruption human trafficking things of like that but I would believe that if you have if you had more ero officers out there doing worksite enforcement making sure getting larger numbers of illegal aliens showing that listen if you are here illegally you and you will be deported then yes I think that would definitely send a message back to migrants whether they be at the border or whatever country they may be in saying that listen not only do we not only can you not fraudulently game our asylum system but if you are in the united states unlawfully yes you will be removed under no excuses no exceptions so preston I’ll let you have the final word is there a positive note to end on if any

Preston:
you know I think that obviously the title 42 decision is a positive note but like we've been talking about it's not the end-all be-all I do think that maybe in terms of a positive note is that people are starting to recognize that what the biden administration is doing just isn't working you know I know that he's underwater with immigration polling and how he's handling the issue and so maybe that will lead his administration to change course but you know until that time we will we will not be holding our breath for that I’ll say and I think that's probably a great point to end on and so for those of you listening at home thank you for tuning in this podcast is available on all streaming platforms including spotify apple podcasts google podcasts and youtube we encourage everyone to leave us a review that really helps us out and please share this podcast with your family and friends to follow what fair is doing and what we're up to please check us out on facebook and twitter just search for the federation for american immigration reform and until next time this has been understanding immigration presented by fair