By the Republican National Committee

THE WORST MONTH AT THE BORDER IN 22 YEARS 

• Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows 156,274 illegal immigrants were apprehended attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in January, making this the highest total for January in 22 years.
• For the first time in history, monthly apprehensions at the southern border have surpassed 150,000 for 23 consecutive months.
  • Under the previous administration, monthly apprehensions never reached 150,000.
• With 3,500 to 4,500 encounters daily, this dwarfs the definition of a “crisis” set by Obama’s DHS Secretary Jeh Johnsonwhen he said in 2019 that “more than 1,000” apprehensions a day would constitute a “crisis.”
• January’s 150,000-plus encounters is a 199 percent increase from the average number of January apprehensions from 2017-2020.
  • 9,393 unaccompanied children were apprehended.
  • 67,690 illegal immigrants were apprehended from countries outside the Northern Triangle and Mexico, showing that Biden’s crisis is global.
  • At least 53 people on the terror watchlist have been apprehended trying to enter the U.S. between ports of entry so far this fiscal year.
• Nearly 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Biden took office.
  • This includes the nearly 4.7 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection has apprehended and the 1.2 million gotaways that have escaped past Border Patrol into the U.S.
  • Border officials say that the official number of gotaways vastly undercounts the illegal immigrants who make it into the U.S.
• Biden has installed a de facto amnesty program in which nearly 50,000 illegal immigrants have had their cases dismissed in court due to his administration’s failure to file the proper paperwork.
• Homeland Security Investigations estimates that Mexican cartels are now making $13 billion a year smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S, 26 times what they made in 2018.

DRUGS ARE POURING OVER THE BORDER INTO OUR COMMUNITIES

• Illicit drugs are flowing into the country at an alarming rate, with only 5 to 10 percent being intercepted as border officials struggle to contain the smuggling.
  • 1,413 pounds of deadly fentanyland 9,839 pounds of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in January alone, with much more getting through.
  • Joshua Sharfstein of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: “If they’re seizing a lot, it’s because a lot is coming in.”
  • The amount of fentanyl seized in January is the equivalent of more than 320 million lethal doses.  
• Deadly rainbow fentanyl, which is designed by cartels to target children and teens, has been increasingly caught crossing the border and is now in at least 26 states.
  • Agents have also recently seen a rise in “speckled” or tie-dye fentanyl
  • Six out of every 10 tablets analyzed by the DEA contains a lethal dose of fentanyl.
• Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45, with the number killed by the drug up 94 percent since 2019.
  • Of the record 107,000 fatal drug overdoses in 2021, two-thirds involved fentanyl; on average, one person in the U.S. now dies from a fentanyl overdose every seven minutes.

BIDEN IGNORES THE SOUTHERN BORDER AS HIS HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE WORSENS

• Despite Biden’s promise of a “fair and humane immigration system,” his open border policies aren’t compassionate; they are deadly.
• Last month in southeastern New Mexico, an illegal immigrant was crushed to death after a human smuggler forced 30 immigrants into a vehicle meant for just 12 occupants.
• Earlier this week in Texas, a human smuggler led police on a high-speed chase, reaching speeds of over 100 mph, before crashing – putting the lives of everyone involved at risk.
• Last week in Frio County, Texas, two young human smugglers, aged 12 and 15, sent their stolen vehicle airborne and crashed while attempting to evade law enforcement, severely injuring the illegal immigrant they were smuggling.
  • Cartels are using social media apps like TikTok and Snapchat to recruit teenagers to transport illegal migrants in exchange for cash, with underage drivers becoming increasingly common.
• Unaccompanied children have become a “painfully common sight” at the southern border, with three young girls – aged one, six, and nine years old – recently found abandoned near the Rio Grande.
• Criminals are flooding across the border, with Border Patrol arresting illegal immigrants accused of battery, rape, sexual assault of a child, sodomy, molestation, and homicide all within the past month.
• Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents have been left demoralized and “overwhelmed” by the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis.

BIDEN AND DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE TO BLAME FOR THE BORDER CRISIS

• Biden’s failed policies have created the crisis at the southern border.
  • In Biden’s first 100 days he took more than 94 executive actions on immigration, including halting construction of the border wall and ending the successful “Remain in Mexico” policy.
  • Illegal immigrants have confirmed this: “The border is open…everybody believes that the border is open. It’s open because we enter. We come in, free, no problem…We came illegally.”
  • Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Biden administration lost at least 150,000 illegal immigrants during the summer of 2021.
• It’s not just Biden; Democrats in Congress have consistently voted for policies that make the border and country less secure.
  • Democrats aided sanctuary cities and sent stimulus checks to illegal immigrants, opposed legislation to fund Title 42, and repeatedly voted against funding the border wall.
  • Democrats voted against hiring more border agents, deporting felons, preventing illegal immigrants convicted of crimes from becoming permanent residents — and voted against strengthening the successful Remain in Mexico policy.
  • Democrats voted against funding for counternarcotic operations and ensuring the enforcement of immigration laws at the border.
  • Democrats voted against ensuring all local and state law enforcement are permitted to cooperate with federal immigration officials to track illegal immigrants.
• A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that just 31 percent of Americans approve of how Biden is handling immigration, a new low.

Originally posted here.