Under the Biden administration, US Border Patrol arrests reached the highest levels this past year since 1986, according to recently released data from US Customs and Border Protection.
Immigration agents detained more than 1.7 million illegal immigrants at the southern border during the 2021 fiscal year, which ended in September. That is the highest the numbers have been since 1986, when Border Patrol made 1.69 million arrests nationwide.
The Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas saw the most arrests, with 549,000 Border Patrol apprehensions. The Del Rio sector had 259,000 apprehensions.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the Biden administration for the high illegal immigration numbers, accusing the president of failing to enforce immigration laws.
“We’re seeing the highest number of cross border crossings and it’s all because of the catastrophic open border policies by the Biden administration,” he told Fox News this week.
President Joe Biden’s former Border Patrol chief, Rodney Scott, agreed. Scott said Biden administration officials have been enabling illegal immigration for months.
“The Biden administration’s team at [the Department of Homeland Security] is laser-focused on expediting the flow of migrants into the U.S. and downplaying the significant vulnerability this creates for terrorists, narcotics smugglers, human traffickers, and even hostile nations to gain access to our homeland,” he said.
Scott was forced out of the administration last month as part of Biden’s effort to get rid of anyone sympathetic toward former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Biden’s latest Customs and Border Protection appointment, Chris Magnus, has refused to call the immigration crisis a “crisis,” instead referring to it as a “very serious” matter.
“Regardless of what we call it, it is something important to me,” he said during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
