FACTSHEET: December 2022 Brings Highest Monthly Encounters at Southwest Border Ever Recorded

WASHINGTON, DC – 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. President Biden’s dangerous and reckless policies are responsible for CBP logging the highest number of migrant encounters for one month on record in December 2022.

Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security released the latest edition of the “Startling Stats” factsheet for December 2022 highlighting how the Biden administration’s dangerous open border policies continue to break records due to a lack of consequences for illegally entering the country.

Key Facts:

• Since President Biden has been in office, there have been over 4.5 million migrant encounters at the Southwest border, in addition to over 1.2 million known gotaways who evaded U.S. Border Patrol agents in the last two years. This is larger than the population of Los Angeles, California, the second largest city in the United States.
• CBP had 251,487 migrant encounters along the Southwest border in December 2022—a 40% increase from the previous year—which includes 161,808 single adults, 77,088 family unit individuals, and 12,298 unaccompanied children.
• In just the first three months of the fiscal year, 38 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry. This total is more than the encounters in all FY17, FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21 combined and is on track to exceed the disturbing 98 encounters in FY22.

Download the “Startling Stats” factsheet here.

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