All-Time Record Number of Illegal Alien Border Crossings in December By Rick Moran
The Border Patrol stopped 251,487 illegal aliens trying to cross the border in December — an all-time record number for any month since records have been kept and 40% above the 179,253 illegals captured at the border in December 2021.
This is the tenth month in a row that has seen more than 200,000 people trying to cross the border.
The “gotaways” — illegal border crossers who evaded efforts to capture them — have also been increasing as the border patrol spends more and more time processing asylum seekers. This means that not only do illegals get away, but so do drug runners who are bringing record amounts of fentanyl and cocaine into the country.
Cubans and Nicaraguans made up the lion’s share of illegals trying to cross.
Cubans were stopped nearly 43,000 times in December, up 23% from November and more than quintuple the same period a year earlier. Nicaraguans were stopped more than 35,000 times, up 3% from November and more than double from December 2021.
More migrants were also stopped from Ecuador and Peru.
The influx from Cuba and Nicaragua made El Paso, Texas, the busiest of the Border Patrol’s nine sectors on the Mexican border for a third month in a row. The city was overwhelmed with migrants who were released to pursue their immigration cases in the U.S. in the weeks leading up to Biden’s visit on Jan. 8, his first to the border as president.
Since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, 717,660 illegals have tried to cross the border, and of that number, 479,229 were single adults. The Biden administration has instituted a plan this month to expel most single adults trying to enter the country while allowing in a limited number of asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti.
The number of Venezuelan arrivals remained far below September highs, when the South American country was the second-highest nationality at the border after Mexicans. In October, the U.S. agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelans on humanitarian parole, while Mexico agreed to take back the same number who entered the U.S. illegally and could be expelled under a pandemic-era rule to deny rights to seek asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Biden said this month that the U.S. would admit up to 30,000 people a month under humanitarian parole from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, allowing them to live and work for two years if they apply online, pay airfare and find a financial sponsor. At the same time, Mexico agreed to take back the same number from those four countries who enter the U.S. illegally and can be removed under the pandemic-era rule known as Title 42.
That new policy appears to be helping keep the numbers down.
U.S. Border Patrol agents have arrested an average of about 4,000 migrants per day in January, three U.S. officials told Reuters this week. That’s down from an average of around 7,400 per day during the week before Christmas, one of the officials said.
At the current pace, border arrests could be the lowest since February 2021, a month after Biden took office. But whether the trend will hold for the rest of the month, let alone beyond, remains unclear.
Indeed, time will tell. The new policy will allow about 120,000 illegals into the U.S. every month — hardly a sign that the Biden administration has a handle on the crisis.
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