Proof the Border Is Historically Secure Can Be Found in CBP’s Monthly Stats

Lost in the din of a violent week is CBP’s release of its statistics for agency “encounters” for the month of November. They reveal that not only is the border secure, but historically secure and becoming more so. Illegal migrant “travel season” starts in February, however, and we’ll soon see how long it lasts, but for now the greatest border accomplishment of Trump II can be measured in the record low number of alien children who are attempting to cross illegally – news you likely won’t hear about anywhere else. 

'Encounters'

By way of background (or refresher), the term “encounters” refers to the total of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol entering illegally between the ports and other alien “applicants for admission” stopped by CBP officers in the agency’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) at the ports of entry because they are deemed “inadmissible” to the United States (usually because they lack proper entry documents).

Under section 235(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), DHS must detain both categories of aliens until they are either admitted, expelled, or granted some form of immigration “relief” that allows them to live here legally. 

That detention mandate, however, was largely ignored by Biden’s DHS – a misbegotten policy that drew historic numbers of aliens to enter illegally, and that triggered passage of the first bill to become law in the current 119th Congress, S.5, the “Laken Riley Act”.