FACTSHEET: Biden’s DHS Touts Win in January But the Numbers Say Otherwise

WASHINGTON, DC— Despite Biden’s Department of Homeland Security celebrating lower migrant encounter numbers last month, CBP had over 156,000 migrant encounters along the Southwest border in January. Don’t be fooled: while the monthly encounter numbers were lower than the previous month, over 156,000 encounters is not a good month.

This total encounter number does not account for the growing record number of known gotaways who entered the country illegally and evaded U.S. Border Patrol. While the January recorded encounter numbers were lower, the true number of migrants crossing the border is more than what the administration is touting. For example, over several weeks last month in the Del Rio sector, 40% of the individuals crossing the border were successful in evading Border Patrol, making them known gotaways that would not be included in the monthly migrant encounter number.

While the Biden administration feebly attempts to deflect blame for the unmitigated crisis at our Southwest border, feuding cartels are turning the U.S.-Mexico border into a warzone, an unprecedented number of people on the terrorist watchlists are attempting to cross the border, and all semblance of law and order has been lost.

Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security released the latest edition of the “Startling Stats” factsheet for January 2023 highlighting how the Biden administration’s dangerous open border policies continue to pose a deafening threat to our homeland security and the safety of Americans.

Key Facts

• In the first four months of FY 2023, CBP arrested 9,445 individuals with criminal convictions including 209 known gang members, 68 of those being MS-13 members.
• From December 2022 to January 2023 there was a 35% increase in arrests of individuals with criminal convictions and a 43% increase in known gang members.
• In just the first four months of the fiscal year, 53 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist, with 15 in January alone, were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry.
• CBP saw an almost 16% increase in the weight of drugs seized in January 2023 from December 2022 at the Southwest border.
• In FY 2023 alone, CBP has seized over 8,600 pounds of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border—Enough to kill over 1.9 billion people or over 5.9 times the U.S. population.
• If this extreme rate of fentanyl seizures continues, FY 2023 will be on track to almost double last year’s fentanyl seizure total.

Download January “Startling Stats” here.