Experts challenged President Biden’s claim Wednesday that “border crossings” are now lower than they were in the final days of the Trump administration.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Mr. Biden was explaining his decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race and making the case for his legacy. Among his claims was that he’s solved the border chaos that reined for his entire tenure.
“Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office,” Mr. Biden said.
The latest monthly data published by Customs and Border Protection belies that claim.
CBP said it detected 130,419 unauthorized migrants at the southern border in June, or far more than the 73,994 in December 2020, the last full month under then-President Trump. January 2021, shared by both men, was also lower at 78,414.
The White House said Mr. Biden wasn’t actually talking about border crossings, but a subset: those coming between the ports of entry who were apprehended by Border Patrol agents.
The latest published numbers still don’t back up Mr. Biden’s claim — the Border Patrol nabbed 82,536 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico boundary in June, or more than the 71,141 in December 2020 and 75,316 in January 2021.
The White House pointed to as-yet unpublished data that says the seven-day average as of July 22 was less than 1,800 Border Patrol arrests per day, compared to 2,415 a day as of Jan. 19, 2021.
Andrew R. “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge and one-time head of the national security law division at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Mr. Biden’s claim took too many liberties.
In particular, it doesn’t include the migrants Mr. Biden is “paroling” into the country from the southern border, as long as they pre-schedule their arrivals.
“It’s not correct in any sense,” Mr. Arthur said. “What he likely meant to say is Border Patrol apprehensions apprehensions, but even under that metric it would technically be correct but it would factually misleading because it fails to include 1,450 aliens with no visas, no rights to enter the United States, that are being ushered by the Biden-Harris administration into the United States through ports of entry.”
Adding those 1,450 a day to the White House’s numbers would bring the daily total to more than 3,200, or significantly more than the 2,500 a day recorded in January 2021.
Mr. Arthur said the border encounters don’t tell the full story because they don’t account for catch-and-release.
In the final days of the Trump administration, officials said CBP was immediately ousting or detaining more than 95% of the 2,500 unauthorized migrants a day. By contrast under Mr. Biden a majority of migrants in any given month are being released.
“We don’t have a problem in New York city because 6,000 migrants are caught at the southwest border,” he said. “We have a problem in New York City because 88.5% of all of the people you’re catching are being released.”
Correction: A previous version of the story misidentified the year when referring to President Biden’s withdrawal from running in 2024.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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