FACTSHEET: Post-Title 42 Border Numbers Confirm Mayorkas’ Shell Game, Unprecedented National Security Crisis 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Biden administration attempts to claim victory at the border following the end of Title 42, the newest U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data proves that the crisis at the Southwest border is still unprecedented under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty—regardless of how he tries to hide the crisis in plain sight by playing a shell game with the numbers.

Today, the House Homeland Security Committee released the May “Startling Stats” Factsheet, detailing yet another month of over 200,000 alien encounters at the Southwest border and the record-breaking chaos that surrounded the end of Title 42 on May 11. As illustrated in the rising number of Office of Field Operations (OFO) encounters, Secretary Mayorkas is utilizing the CBP One app to paint otherwise unlawful border crossings as “legal” entries and to release inadmissible aliens into the interior of the U.S.

While Secretary Mayorkas has worked to shift illegal aliens to ports of entry, an unprecedented number of known or suspected terrorists attempted to cross the Southwest border between ports of entry—showing the porous Southwest border continues to represent a historic national security crisis. With more than 1.5 million known gotaways under this administration, there is no way to know how many more potential national security threats, violent criminals, and hardened gang members are now at large in our country. Not only are more suspected terrorists attempting to cross our Southwest border, but encounters of Chinese nationals have also increased over 1,200 percent compared to May 2022. While their motives for crossing are unknown, these encounters include individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, according to information received by Chairman Green earlier this month.

This continuing crisis only underlines the importance of the Homeland Security Committee’s full-scale investigation into Secretary Mayorkas’ reckless open-border policies, refusal to enforce the law, and misleading claims to the American people.

Key Facts:

• CBP reported 204,561 alien encounters along the Southwest Border (SWB) in May 2023 —up over 13% from May 2021.
• 35,317 aliens were encountered at ports of entry — 17% of the total encounters in May.
  • This is a 20% increase from April 2023 and a staggering 34% increase from January 2023.
• 28,696 inadmissible aliens were processed by OFO with CBP One app appointments.
• So far in FY23, CBP has arrested 20,923 aliens with criminal convictions nationwide, including 442 known gang members, 134 of those being MS-13 members.
• In FY23 alone, CBP has seized over 20,000 pounds of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border—enough to kill over 4.6 billion people.
  • In May 2023, fentanyl seizures at the Southwest border increased 136% compared to May 2022.
• Leading up to the end of Title 42, Border Patrol reported more than 10,000 illegal alien apprehensions a day.
• In just the first eight months of the fiscal year, 125 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry, surpassing last fiscal year’s entire total of 98.

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