Analysis: Sweeping Measure Shows the Real Scale of Border Insecurity Under Biden and Harris

For more than half a century, the number of immigrants apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol at the Southwest border has served as a rough proxy for illegal entries. However, this measure has become much less informative in recent years because it doesn’t account for other aspects of border insecurity that have exploded during the Biden/Harris administration. These include:

• gotaways, who are illegal border crossers detected by Border Patrol but not apprehended.
• inadmissible migrants encountered at ports of entry, who are generally banned from entering the U.S. but are routinely being allowed in.

To close that data gap, Just Facts has merged three federal datasets into a single measure called “Inadmissible Migrant Encounters and Gotaways,” or “IMEGs” for short. This sweeping measure of border insecurity includes apprehensions at all borders, inadmissible migrant encounters at ports, and gotaways.

Annual datasets for this metric are available for the entirety of the Trump administration and the first three years of Biden’s. Combined, they reveal an average of 881,000 IMEGs per year under Trump/Pence and 3,228,000 per year under Biden/Harris:

The transitions between the datasets and presidencies have slight offsets because the annual datasets begin on the first day of the federal fiscal year (October 1), while presidential inaugurations take place four months later on January 20. These offsets are mitigated by the fact that many illegal immigrants respond to the results of U.S. elections and begin traveling to the U.S. before presidents are seated. Presidential elections take place in early November, only one month after the start of the federal fiscal year.

The abnormality of the situation under Biden/Harris is underscored by the full historical records of Southwest border apprehensions and IMEGs, which show dramatic increases and divergencies in recent years:

The three components of IMEGs are detailed below and shed additional light on the unprecedented nature of border insecurity under Biden and Harris.

Southwest Border Apprehensions

Data on Southwest border apprehensions extend back to 1960 and include illegal border crossers who are caught while trying to evade Border Patrol and those who deliberately turn themselves into Border Patrol because they expect to be allowed into the United States. The latter became a common occurrence under Biden and Harris. 

Shortly after taking office in January 2021, Biden enacted numerous policies to loosen immigration restrictions and release illegal border crossers into the nation.

In the first 2.2 years of Biden’s presidency, his administration released into the U.S. 2,148,738 of the 3,447,327 unique individuals encountered by Customs and Border Protection at the Southwest Border — a release rate of 62%.

In January of this year, Biden’s Security of Homeland Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, admitted in an interview with Fox News that the release rate was above 70%. Several days later, three Border Patrol agents reported to Fox that agents confronted Mayorkas during a meeting, and he confessed that the release rate was actually “above 85%.”

Under these policies, Southwest border apprehensions rose to record levels. In 2023, the figure was 2.0 million, or 2.9 times the pre-Biden historical average:

Biden and various media outlets are currently touting steep declines in Southwest border apprehensions over recent months. This half-truth ignores the fact that Biden is now allowing masses of inadmissible immigrants into the country through other means, as documented below.

Gotaways

Reliable data on gotaways extend back to 2014. These figures don’t include illegal immigrants who are not detected by Border Patrol, which are impossible to directly measure.

As explained by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security:

Gotaways occur when cameras or sensors detect migrants crossing the border, but no one is found, or no agents are available to respond. Gotaways are observational estimates and rely on agents identifying migrants as crossing illegally and tracking them to the point where they cannot be apprehended; however, an unknown number of migrants evade detection.

Like other measures of border insecurity, gotaways have skyrocketed under Biden. In 2023, there were at least 769,000 gotaways, or 6.1 times the pre-Biden average:

As these hordes of illegal entries occurred, Biden administration officials repeatedly insisted that the “border is secure.” Harris, for example, declared on NBC’s Meet the Press in September 2022 that “The border is secure” and “We have a secure border.”

The Biden administration has asked for more money to allegedly secure the border, but in January 2024, Mayorkas wouldn’t commit to accept more funding from Congress “on the condition that the funds could only be used for detention and removal, but not release into the country.”

Airports and Land Ports of Entry

In 2022, Biden and company began allowing hundreds of thousands of migrants who are inadmissible under federal law to cross U.S. borders via airplanes and land ports of entry. The administration permits the migrants to enter by using a free app and:

• claims authority to do this under its general regulatory powers and a provision of the law that allows for temporary entries “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
• is being challenged and sued by various states for redefining “illegal crossings as lawful pathways” and “inflicting serious costs” on the states.

The impact of this policy is evident from data on inadmissible migrant encounters at ports of entry, which are available during the Trump and Biden administrations:

CNN’s Dana Bash recently claimed that it’s “not illegal” for Biden and Harris to let these people into the country, but the reality is that the law allows for such entries under narrow circumstances and “only on a case-by-case basis” — not by the trainload.

Texas and 19 other states filed a lawsuit against this policy, but the case was dismissed by a district court judge on the basis of standing, a legal doctrine that prohibits lawsuits unless plaintiffs can prove that they suffered a direct personal injury. Litigation has continued, but regardless of the outcome, the issue of standing doesn’t settle the legality of Biden’s actions.

Similarly, the Biden administration flagrantly flouted the law when attempting to transfer student loan debts to taxpayers. This action was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court in a 63 ruling. Notably, the minority argued that the plaintiffs didn’t have “standing” to challenge Biden’s dictate. 

Conclusion

Given the actions of the Biden administration, apprehensions at the Southwest border no longer provide a broadly informative proxy of border insecurity. To close this gap in knowledge, Just Facts has merged federal data on apprehensions at all borders, inadmissible migrant encounters at ports, and gotaways into a single measure called IMEGs. 

This broad measure reveals 3,228,000 IMEGs per year under Biden and Harris, or 3.7 times the 881,000 IMEGs per year under Trump and Pence. Although association does not prove causation, Biden and his underlings have taken deliberate actions that materially increased these numbers.

U.S. immigration laws are designed to ensure that newcomers are a net benefit to the nation. They accomplish this by providing strict criteria for who is allowed in and by limiting the numbers so that migrants assimilate instead of bringing crime-ridden and poverty-stricken cultures from their homelands to the United States. 

By allowing millions of migrants into the U.S. who are not subject to those standards, Biden and Harris have jeopardized the economic health and physical safety of the American people.

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James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a research and educational institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies and teaching research skills.

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