The Department of Homeland Security maintains a list of cumulative statistics showing, among other data, the number of “encounters” by Border Patrol agents of aliens illegally crossing our borders. For example, in July, there were 183,503 such encounters.
Given that some aliens are sent home quickly and may try again within the same month, the number of encounters is generally somewhat greater than the actual number of persons involved, but we have no way of knowing that number.
Another, more important, figure is also one that we the public don’t know, but that the DHS does know, and just won’t tell us. That is the number of illegal border crossers who are actually released into the U.S. after their unlawful entry.
The Just the News website has published a recent report on that issue, titled “DHS hides monthly number of illegal migrants released into U.S after interacting with border agents.” Just the News spoke with a former immigration judge, Andrew Arthur, who told them that “DHS does track the total number of migrants released after an encounter with border agents, but making that data available to the public would paint the Biden Administration in a negative light.” Mr. Arthur continued with the following:
The only reason why ICE and OFO [Office of Field Operations] would refuse to disclose that information is to hide the fact that it is releasing more than 100,000 aliens per month into the United States, and to conceal the effects of those migrant releases on communities across the United States. [Emphasis added.]
Arthur pointed out that, while the Remain in Mexico policy was being adjudicated, the government was under court order to release those numbers, which it did, demonstating that they have the data. However, they have “refused to do so since those orders were vacated in August 2022.”
Just the News quotes the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which in June estimated that during the first two years of the Biden administration, the population of illegals in the U.S. grew by 2.3 million, an increase of 16 percent. A FAIR spokesman note, “This is a conservative estimate on FAIR’s part based on verifiable data. The report does not speculate about numbers that cannot be verified.”
The spokesman said that DHS should be “required to release all pertinent information to the public. It should be done as a matter of course because the public has a right to know.”
Theoretically, yes. But in Bidenworld, the public has the right to shut up and keep quiet.
For more, see Just the News.