December 2023 was the worst month of illegal immigration in US history, with the total nationwide encounters reaching a record 371,036 according to the recently released US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
The previous all-time high monthly record was set in September 2023 with 269,735 illegal alien encounters at the southern border. December 2022 recorded a total of 253,315 such incidents.
Thousands of people managed to enter the country illegally without being apprehended by the CBP last month. Cartel-driven influxes through points of entry in Lukeville, Arizona, contributed to the record encounters in December 2023, the report mentioned.
President of the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Dan Stein, said the vast majority of those encountered at the entry points are released into the US. Stein blamed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the adverse situation, highlighting how he admitted to Border Patrol agents that the release rate is “above 85 percent” according to a source-based report by Fox News.
Mayorkas, however, previously accepted that the release rate per day is over 70 percent in an interview with Fox’s Brett Baier. He is currently facing impeachment by the House of Representatives.
On January 26, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the House would vote “as soon as possible” on whether to impeach Mayorkas and move forward with punishing him for his administration’s handling of the US-Mexico border.
“Unless Congress acts decisively to remove Secretary Mayorkas from office and force the Biden administration to secure our borders, these unsustainable levels of illegal immigration will continue through 2024,” Stein said in a statement.
President Joe Biden issued a statement shortly after the CBP data was published, vowing to “shut down” the US-Mexico border if Congress approved a proposal under negotiation. If passed into law, the bill would be the “toughest and fairest set of reforms” to secure the border.
“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Biden’s statement noted.
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