The most recent data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveals that the federal agency has already documented more than one million encounters with unauthorized migrants since October 1, marking the beginning of fiscal year 2024.
This timeframe represents the quickest rate at which one million encounters have ever been recorded in the history of the United States.The figure is approximately 100,000 encounters higher than the same period in the previous year.
In early February 2023, the U.S. had recorded 908,000 encounters for the fiscal year. Furthermore, the U.S. is currently monitoring a larger number of Chinese migrants crossing the border.
Chinese illegal immigrants constituted the fastest-growing group of border crossers last year. Fiscal year 2024 is already on course to surpass that record. The CBP encountered over 37,000 Chinese migrants last year.
However, they have already encountered nearly 20,000 since October. According to the CBP, agents have encountered an average of approximately 150 Chinese migrants per day during this fiscal year. This news comes shortly after a “bipartisan border bill” failed to gain support in Congress this week.
The bill, referred to as “border security,” allocates a substantial $60 billion to fund Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia but does not provide any funding for border wall construction. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other critics of the bill argued that it would “normalize” 5,000 border encounters each day.
“That works out to 1.8 million a year,” Cruz told Fox News on Tuesday.
“That works out to about 6 million illegal immigrants over the three years of Biden….
“So the idiotic Republican proposal was let’s be for two-thirds of the border invasion that Biden has allowed.”
The vote on Tuesday resulted in the House of Representatives failing to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), appointed by President Biden. The majority of the House voted in accordance with their party lines. Nevertheless, the Republicans faced several defections that ultimately led to the downfall of the 216-214 vote.
Four Republicans ultimately voted no:
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Ken Buck (R-CO)
Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
Blake Moore (R-UT)
Moore made a last-minute decision to switch his vote as a procedural tactic in order to bring the resolution back to the floor.
Legislators cast their votes on a resolution that combined two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. One article accused him of “refusing to comply with Federal immigration laws,” while the other accused him of violating the “public trust.”
Since 1876, no Cabinet secretary has faced impeachment, except for Secretary of War William Belknap. In recent months, there have been numerous records set in terms of border crossings. In December alone, there were 302,000 encounters with migrants, marking the highest monthly total ever recorded.
This was also the first time that the monthly total had surpassed 300,000.