FACTSHEET: Encounters at Southwest Border on the Rise Again as Mayorkas is Set to Testify on Inadequate FY24 Border Security Budget

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is set to testify before the Homeland Security Committee, the latest monthly encounters data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows the startling truth that despite this administration’s numerous efforts to hide the extent of the crisis at our borders, the chaos is clearly only getting worse due to this administration’s refusal to enforce our nation’s laws.

Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security released the latest edition of the “Startling Stats” factsheet for March 2023, highlighting how the crisis at our nation’s borders continues to worsen due to Secretary Mayorkas’ incompetence and the Biden administration’s dangerous open-border policies, and illustrating the toll this crisis is taking on our overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and border communities. This worrisome CBP data comes less than one month before the possible end of Title 42, which will cause a worsening influx of migrant encounters that the Biden administration is ill-equipped to address.

The numbers do not lie. In March, encounters of migrants, known or suspected terrorists, and gang members at our Southwest border were all on the rise compared to the previous month, even as this administration continues to mislead Congress about the operational control and security of our borders. As for the crisis that has metastasized to our Northern border, yet another suspected terrorist attempted to cross between ports of entry in March, and encounters at the Swanton Sector are only worsening despite the Biden administration’s last-minute and overdue shift of resources to the U.S.-Canada border.

Key Facts:

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had 191,899 alien encounters along the Southwest Border (SWB) in March 2023 — up almost 24% from the previous month.
• Since President Biden has been in office, there have been over 5 million encounters at the Southwest border, in addition to over 1.3 million known gotaways who evaded U.S. Border Patrol agents.
• In just the first six months of the fiscal year, 80 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist, including 11 in March alone, were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry and 2 were stopped attempting to cross the Northern border between ports of entry.
• In FY 2023 alone, CBP has seized over 14,000 pounds of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border—enough to kill over 3.1 billion people.
• As of March 2023, the most active sector of the Northern border, the Swanton Sector, has now seen an increase of more than 1,000% compared to March 2022.
• In March, CBP processed 22,865 individuals at ports of entry as exceptions to Title 42 based on the newly available CBP One app appointment scheduler—this is one of the latest attempts by the Biden administration to increase the processing of aliens into the interior.

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