President Joe Biden and his administration have been notoriously lax when it comes to enforcing existing laws on border security and immigration, and now the numbers have been crunched to reveal just how lax the administration has been.
Since President Biden first took office, at least 1.35 million illegal migrants were caught at the border and released into the interior of the U.S. — a number that is greater than the entire population of eight different states, Breitbart reported.
On top of that, estimates indicate that there were at least 1 million “got aways” at the border over the same time span — illegal entrants who were seen by agents or cameras but were never apprehended and processed — and, of course, the entirely unknown number of “never seens,” or those who secretly entered the country entirely unobserved.
More than 1.35 million migrants caught and released
Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies recently scoured the monthly data published by Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine how many illegal migrants have been apprehended after crossing the border but then are released into the interior instead of being detained and deported.
For Fiscal Year 2022, Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, almost 2 million illegal migrants were encountered at the border, and slightly less than half of those were immediately expelled by virtue of the COVID-19-related Title 42 public health order that remains in place for now.
Over the more than 1 million who were not expelled under Title 42, a survey of the various subcategories in the CBP numbers revealed that at least 583,000 were subsequently released.
Added to that figure are the estimated 120,000 illegal migrants who were temporarily detained but then released by ICE, along with another couple hundred thousand who were processed and released at a port of entry or are unaccompanied minor children, and the likely total number of illegal migrants released into the country thus far in FY 2022 is around 920,000.
In addition to the roughly 920,000 illegal migrants released into the interior so far in FY 2022 are those who were released during President Biden’s portion of FY 2021, which was estimated to be around 426,000 combined between those caught and released at the border or ports of entry by CBP or detained and released by ICE.
That brings that grand total of caught and released illegal migrants during Biden’s tenure thus far up to at least 1.35 million — a number that is greater than the entire population of several large metro areas and eight individual states, according to Breitbart, including Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
Factoring in the “got aways” to the total
However, that estimated 1.35 million caught and released migrants doesn’t include the number of so-called “got aways” who were spotted but never apprehended while entering the country illegally.
According to a Fox News report in July, which cited Department of Homeland Security sources and data, there were already more than 500,000 such “got aways” in FY 2022 at that point, which averaged out to around 55,000 per month, meaning at least another 165,000 prior to the conclusion of FY 2022, for a rough total of at least 665,000.
Add to that number the 389,155 known “got aways” during Biden’s portion of FY 2021, and you have more than 1 million never apprehended illegal migrants on top of the 1.35 million caught and released since Biden took office, for a not-so-grand total of at least 2.35 million new illegal migrants Biden has allowed into the country — and, again, there is no way to determine how many more may have entered without ever being seen.