There were at least 2.5 million enforcement encounters nationwide by border agents last fiscal year, according to the data published for August. 2.2 million of those were arrests of illegal immigrants along the southern border. There were 1.96 million total enforcement actions in Fiscal Year 2021 and about 389,000 “gotaways.”
The Biden administration has also released hundreds of thousands via humanitarian parole, a program by which noncitizens are allowed to enter the country on a case-by-case basis or for other extenuating circumstances.
In the spring of 2022, the states of Texas and Missouri sued the Biden administration after it canceled the “Remain in Mexico” policy. As part of the lawsuit, CBP provided monthly updates to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that included the number of enforcement actions on the border.
The update in July of this year indicated that border agents and officials at ports of entry released nearly 73,000 noncitizens in June via humanitarian parole or notices to appear. ABC News reported in late September that June was the last month for which data is available on the number of noncitizens paroled into the country.
The court document stated in a footnote, “At this time, CBP does not have a mechanism to track all applicants for admission in the United States that are not encountered by CBP.”
U.S. Border Patrol paroled about a quarter million noncitizens into the country from August 2021 to June 2022, while only 11 people were paroled in the seven months before that, per ABC. Many of those noncitizens came from Afghanistan or Ukraine.
Fox News reported in October 2021 that it obtained documents indicating the Biden administration had released more than 160,000 noncitizens via notices to report and humanitarian parole since March 2021.
Amid all of these noncitizens being released into the country, the Transportation Security Administration told members of Congress in January that it even allows illegal immigrants to use arrest warrants as a form of identification at security checkpoints.
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately decided against Texas and Missouri, permitting the federal government to proceed with canceling the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
A court document with border enforcement statistics can be found below.
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Hayden Sparks
Hayden Sparks is a senior reporter for The Texan and a lifelong resident of the Lone Star State. He has coached competitive speech and debate and has been involved in politics since a young age. One of Hayden's favorite quotes is by Sam Houston: "Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may."
