Although inflation continues to get the most headlines, President Joe Biden’s longest-running issue is undoubtedly the border. The crisis kicked off only a few months after Biden took office.
Republican leaders point to the new President halting construction on the wall and dialing back his predecessor’s immigration policies, such as Remain in Mexico.
Since then, the amount of illegal crossings has exploded according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports, and the southern border remains a top priority for millions of citizens.
However, it seems Biden’s CBP is reluctant to come forward with new data — and one statistic in particular.
With three months of the fiscal year remaining, border patrol has apprehended over 1.7 million migrant travelers, far above where it was when Donald Trump was in office.
In fact, many of the numbers we’ve seen represent new record highs in terms of encounters and arrests. Democrat leaders still claim there’s no crisis, but experts point immediately at the glaring numbers.
One number remains under wraps, though: the number of illegals who die while attempting to cross the U.S. border, or soon after.
Interestingly, this number is routinely released: in fact, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published the statistic on its website every year between 1998 and 2020. But it stopped when Biden entered office.
From NTD:
…the Biden administration has broken a long-standing policy of publicly releasing the number of illegal immigrants who die while crossing into the United States, or soon after.
Over the course of three months, The Epoch Times made multiple requests to CBP for the missing data from fiscal years 2021 and 2022 to date. But CBP, to date, has declined to provide the information.
The last statistics we have come from 2020 (247 died that year) and 2019 (300 casualties).
To date, the highest number of deaths recorded was 2005, when 492 people perished while attempting to illegally enter the United States. That was also the year Border Patrol nabbed 1.2 million migrants.
Of course, not all deaths can be recorded as Border Patrol isn’t aware of every one. So this statistic merely acts as a barometer of how dangerous the crossing situation is.
Texas officials have said they’ve already encountered numerous bodies in their travels: Don White of Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery says he recovered 64 bodies this year and is set to break last year’s record of 119.
The border crisis isn’t merely a safety issue for the country as a whole, and its legal citizens.
It’s also a serious problem for those foreign travelers looking to sneak into the country. Most right-wing leaders maintain that Democrats are only hurting these people with their lax – or almost non-existent – border restrictions and policies.
And when the CBP doesn’t disclose an important statistic like this, it only adds more fuel to the fire.
If the Biden administration wishes to quell fears concerning illegal immigration, it’s likely the American people will demand transparency. That begins with providing the public with up-to-date statistics.
Key Takeaways:
- Biden’s CBP hasn’t released the number of illegal crossing deaths.
- This statistic has historically been made public every year since 1998, but data has stopped flowing in the past 3 years.
- Authorities suggest the body count could break records this year, and the number of encounters and arrests is already on track to be all-time highs.
Source: NTD News
