By Hannah Nightingale – The Postmillennial
In a Wednesday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre claimed that Biden has “done more to secure the border” than “anybody else,” adding that the administration has “expanded the pathway to citizenship.”
A reporter quickly questioned Jean Pierre’s statement on the administration expanding the pathway to citizenship, which Jean-Pierre responded, “the pathway of legal — legal pathway, pardon me, the legal pathway for migrants to enter this country” through the “parolee program.”
The reporter noted that this program “doesn’t lead to any sort of permanent legal” status within the country, to which Jean-Pierre said, “You’re right. It gives you a legal pathway to come in and that’s what I’m talking about.”
Jean-Pierre also claimed that “The president has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else,” adding that “June saw the single largest month-to-month drop in unlawful border crossing because of the policies this president has put in place.”
She said the Biden administration has a record number of federal agents and officers working to secure the border “because of funding this president secured,” and brought world leaders together to discuss the issue on a global scale.
Jean-Pierre ignored the fact that this so-called “single largest month-to-month drop” only came about because illegal immigration along the southern border has skyrocketed to record levels under the Biden administration.
June saw 144,566 border southwest border encounters, down from 206,701 the month prior. This number is already back up, with 183,503 encounters being recorded in July, according to US Customs and Border Patrol data.
December of 2022 saw a record high, with 252,325 encounters being recorded. Fiscal year 2023 has surpassed fiscal year 2021, which began in the last months of the trump presidency with 1973,092 encounters compared to 2021’s 1,734,686.
In the final full fiscal year of Trump’s presidency, 458,088 encounters were recorded. During Biden’s first full month of his presidency, encounters jumped to 101,099, and again the next month to 173,277.
While fiscal year 2020 was marked by a decrease in border crossings due to Trump’s reinstatement of Title 42 amid the pandemic, the highest year seen during his presidency, fiscal year 2019, was a fraction of those seen under biden, at 977,509 encounters.