America's Talking - More Than 12 Million Illegal Border Crossers Since Fiscal 2021

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

More than 12 million people have illegally crossed the border into the U.S. since 2021, data obtained and analyzed by The Center Square show. That includes the more than 241,000 apprehensions of illegal border crossers in May. The total number who’ve illegally entered the U.S. nationwide in fiscal 2024 through May is more than 2.2 million, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The majority of illegal border crossers are overwhelmingly single adults. In fiscal 2024 through May, they totaled over 1.35 million. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, June 28th. The ongoing border crisis has been a major issue on the minds of voters since President Biden first took office and changed border security policies put in place by former President Donald Trump. The Center Square reported this week that the number of illegal border crossings

now exceed 12 million people since January 2021 when Biden first took office. And Trump hammered away on the issue during Thursday night's debate. Joining me to discuss the border crisis is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Casey, you covered the debate Thursday night. And regardless what the issue was, it seemed like Trump always returned to the ongoing border crisis. What do you think? Yeah, I think we saw a more disciplined Donald Trump this debate.

time, and it really favored him. I mean, there's been more than enough talk about how President Joe Biden was faltering, fumbling, stumbling, and at times incoherent throughout the debate, and may have even, you know, we'll see, may have even ended his presidential campaign. I mean, I think that's very much to be determined, but it's possible after the reaction of that debate. But part of the reason that that was able to happen is because Trump was more disciplined. It was almost uncharacteristically disciplined in these debates. Maybe it was the music. of the microphone rule that CNN had a place. Maybe it was coaching from advisors, but whatever it was, when Biden was faltering and stumbling, Trump didn't interrupt him. He let him make himself look bad.

When Biden was trailing off, Trump didn't interrupt him. And when it came to messaging, Trump was disciplined to stay on the border, which is a key issue for him. Polling is shown time and again, that the border is a top concern for voters. It's an issue where Trump blows Biden out of the water. Everyone knows that Trump is strong on the border and that the border, the southern border crisis is a big problem now. Illegal immigration has absolutely skyrocketed since Biden took office and kind of unprecedented spike, really. And we've seen some of the fallout of that. We've seen local mayors, Democratic mayors, complain that they can't handle the number of migrants. We've seen a few, you know, high profile incidents where an illegal immigrant committed some kind of crime or violent crime.

And that those stories have been amplified and used by Trump to illustrate, you know, what he sees is the biggest problem facing the country. And I think it's, you know, it's his message. It's getting a lot of attention. You know, a Quidipa poll came out the day before the debate, showed Trump leading by four points. And so Trump hammering the border is working for him. And he was able to do it during the debate. And at least in this case, you know, Trump has the numbers and the data and the facts to back him up. And so that makes it easy for him to make this argument.

And as you said, no matter what the question was about, he always brought it back to the border. And I think it just shows that he really feels like this is a winning issue for him. We can get into the numbers on, you know, why that is. But Trump knows this is a winning issue for him. There are some issues he doesn't want to talk about, like abortion, like, you know, like January 6, like his own convictions. And he was disciplined to divert away from those, although he did take some fire for not answering questions. But, I mean, his politicians don't answer questions. I mean, it's just part of the game.

But he did talk about his issues. And so it was uncharacteristically disciplined for Donald Trump. On day one, President Biden ended a number of Trump-era border security policies. Stop building the border wall that, you know, back in 2015, 2016, Trump said he was going to do. Ended the remain in Mexico policy. That's the policy under Trump, where he required. migrants who were claiming asylum to remain in Mexico until they had their asylum hearings and were granted legal permission to enter the U.S.

He ended the COVID-era policy that prevented migrants from crossing into the country for fear of for health concerns. And he also had been talking for years about reforming immigration policies and allowing more migrants more past the citizenship, which Trump and critics have said encouraged migrants from everywhere to enter into the country. That 12 million figure, Casey, it includes Godaways. Those are the folks who are not apprehended by Border Patrol, but who are seen entering the country illegally between ports of entry, caught on drone footage, other videos spotted

by the eye, but just agents in the field aren't able to apprehend them. 12 million people, that's greater than the population of 44 U.S. states. That's a massive number. And as you mentioned, cities across the country, not just in borders cities because of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's busing strategy and others. It's not just, it wasn't just him who was moving borders. Cities like Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., Denver have been overwhelmed with migrants. And as you also mentioned, inflation under President Biden, prices are 20% higher since he first took office.

Right up there with inflation, as the top two issues voters say they're concerned about, is the border crisis. Do you think that will be the winning issue here? What are your thoughts? Right. Yeah, I mean, it's a kitchen table issue. And it's undeniable by the data and the reporting. I mean, I think that Trump has a bad habit sometimes of getting in either being. so ahead of the curve that he's predicting things that people don't really believe are going to happen

yet, or he is kind of just speculating in conjecture and doesn't have the data to back him up. But on inflation in the border, he has the data to back him up. And I thought it was really interesting that he mentioned Godaways, Dan, at the debate, because, you know, we have some great reporting from Bethany Blinkley at the CenterSquare.com, and she's written a lot about Godaways and how the number of illegal immigrants coming in this country is basically chronically underreported. The numbers and the estimates that you see in other media are much lower than the actual figure because of the Godoway's number, the people that who come in but are not necessarily caught

is in the millions, right? And so the numbers that you see or you hear talked about is actually much lower than what it should be. And Trump made mention of that, and I thought that was really interesting. Maybe he'll bring some attention to this idea of Godaways that we have had some really good reporting on at the center square.com. I mean, I just want to point out, damn forth throwing it by two, that the northern border has become a big issue as well. I mean, this is the kind of thing that normally Trump would bring up and everyone would roll their eyes, but it ended up coming true. Like saying the northern border is being overrun.

People will say, what? No, no. But if you look at the latest data, we have good reporting on this at the center square.com. The northern border has seen the highest number of illegal entries in the U.S. in history under the Biden administration. I mean, that's crazy. We're seeing record numbers, not just at the state. southern border, but at the northern border. In the first eight months of this fiscal year,

about 100,000 illegal immigrants were caught. And that doesn't count the Godaways again. That Godaways number is important. So we're seeing record numbers, not just through the southern border, but also the northern as well. Casey, thank you for joining us today. Readers, our listeners can keep up with all things related to the border and more at thecenter square.com.