"Unprecedented Numbers of Illegal Migrants Have Entered the U.S. Under Biden–and Americans Should Know This!"
By Congressman Byron Donalds & Dan Stein
Published in the "Washington Times" – July 20, 2023

A recent analysis of government data by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) indicates that as of April 2023, there were about 16.8 million illegal migrants living in the United States—an increase of about 1.3 million since the start of 2022. The 16.8 million estimate is a very conservative figure since the government only tracks illegal migrants with fixed addresses, and even those with fixed addresses are not fully counted because they are reluctant to respond to government surveys.

Overall, more than 6 million new illegal migrants have entered the United States since President Joe Biden swore to “preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States,” and more than 2.3 million individuals have been released into the country or eluded apprehension at the border all together. The only real effort by the Biden administration to address this ongoing crisis is to make it less visible to the American public by expanding and abusing its abuse of statutory parole authority.

The chaos unleashed by the Biden administration’s willful dismantlement of all forms of immigration enforcement—from controlling our borders to removing people who have no legal claim to be here—is simply undermining the basic interests of the American people. It is also a gift to our adversaries who are happy to capitalize on self-inflicted border conditions that have overwhelmed the resources and manpower of the agencies tasked with protecting our nation.

To be frank, the threats to America’s homeland are many and real. For example, China has repeatedly tested the resolve of presidents it perceives as weak. From spy balloons drifting over strategic military sites, to operating numerous discreet police stations on American soil, to establishing listening posts 90 miles off our coast, to various of military and industrial espionage, to serving as the main source of deadly fentanyl, Beijing is exploiting every American vulnerability in its effort to replace the United States as the preeminent global power.

From a realistic perspective, why wouldn’t the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempt to use the Biden administration’s open borders policies to its advantage? In fact, the evidence suggests that they already are. Since President Biden came to office, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of migrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) who were encountered attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.

In April 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents encountered just three PRC nationals attempting to cross the Southwest border illegally. However, in April 2023, there were 3,205 such encounters—an eye-popping 106,733% increase. Add in the northern border and those without visas encountered at ports of entry, there have been 28,814 encounters of PRC citizens in just the first eight months of the current fiscal year—a figure that has already eclipsed the total number encountered for all FY2022. Also important to note is the fact that we have no way of knowing how many Chinese nationals actually are among the estimated 1.5 million “gotaways” who have entered the United States unencountered since President Biden took office.

No doubt, the majority of the Chinese nationals, much like the unprecedented numbers of others taking advantage of the Biden Border Crisis, are economic migrants. Some may even be legitimate asylum-seekers fleeing persecution at the hands of the Chinese regime. But it would be foolish to believe that among those who are encountered and subsequently released, or who eluded apprehension, there are not people who pose blatant security risks to our great nation.

The danger is not limited to hostile regimes like the CCP. As of the end of May, 2023, 127 foreign nationals on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) terror watch list have been encountered at both the southern and northern borders—many with ties to organizations like Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, etc. Even more concerning are the illegal migrants who slip in because CBP agents are tied up processing and transporting the endless influx of migrants encouraged to come here by the Biden administration’s inadequate border policies.

Even when they have a terror suspect in their custody, the overwhelmed immigration agencies and pressure from Washington bureaucrats keep the assembly line moving. In a scathing report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General (DHS IG), one CBP agent involved in the mistaken release of a terror suspect in 2022 noted that the dangerous incident occurred because he and his colleagues were “busy processing an increased flow of migrants.”

Combine the national security concerns with the 2.3 million illegal migrants added to our population in just the last two and half years, and the overwhelming burdens this has imposed on our nation is a great cause for concern. The fact that we are aiding our adversaries in the legal immigration process should set off alarms. However, these alarms continue to fall on deaf ears at the White House at the helm of President Biden—who purposefully and recklessly seeks to exploit our nation’s immigration system overall.