Welcome to the 52nd edition of �The BorderLine�! For the past year, every
week, I have tried to capture the unprecedented nature of the Biden-Harris
administration�s migration ideology, which mostly boils down to letting in
millions more foreign nationals at the border than Congress has ever
authorized while severely limiting enforcement of immigration laws inside
this country. With the patience of my editors at The Daily Signal, I have
tried to bring readers a full picture of what is happening, why it�s
happening, and what it means to all Americans.

This anniversary column is a good time to review some numbers. In �The
BorderLine� No. 3, I looked at President Joe Biden�s border policies by
the numbers, and it wasn�t a pretty picture. Nearly a year later, where
are we?

Let�s start small and work up.

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0 � The number of formal press conferences conducted by Vice President
Kamala Harris since she became her party�s 2024 candidate for president,
according to Fox News. Pew Research polling shows that immigration is the
No. 1 issue for Donald Trump supporters�82% consider it a major issue, as
do 39% of Harris supporters. There is clearly public interest in what both
candidates would do about immigration if elected.

2 � The number of trips Biden and Harris�each�took to the southern border
since their term began in 2021. Biden went to Texas in 2023 and 2024. And
so-called border czar Harris, who was tasked by Biden to solve the �root
causes� of illegal immigration back in 2021, went once in 2021 to meet
with local groups who assist illegal immigrants and made a second visit
just one week ago.

6.5 � The percentage of the total population of Nicaragua that has been
encountered at U.S. borders since Biden took office, according to the
chart below. Customs and Border Protection port inspectors and Border
Patrol agents combined have also encountered 6% of Cuba�s entire
population, almost 10% of Honduras�, and 4% of Haiti�s. Most of them were
released at the border and allowed to enter the U.S., but many were
allowed to fly into interior U.S. airports under Biden�s invented �parole�
schemes.

13,000 � The number of aliens convicted of murder who are still in the
United States. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre attempted to
explain how this number is being �falsely represented.� Is it? The
Associated Press claims the �numbers have been misconstrued without key
context, because the figures span decades,� and some who are not in
Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody may be detained by state or
local law enforcement. Some, perhaps, but not the majority.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement�s �non-detained docket� consists of
all aliens in criminal or immigration proceedings but not actually behind
bars. The total docket was under 5 million cases at the end of fiscal year
2022, over 6 million cases a year ago, and is around 7 million now. This
chart shows the projected growth of this non-detained population under the
Biden-Harris administration.

435,719 � The number of aliens with known criminal convictions who are
still in the United States. A year ago, it was 407,983. Note that these
are only the convictions in the U.S. For all we know, some or many might
have convictions in their home countries or other countries.

According to information that ICE gave to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas,
recently, through the end of July, there were 662,556 aliens on the non-
detained docket who were either convicted of crimes or facing criminal
charges (those who solely committed the crime of illegally crossing the
border are not included). Only around 15,000 of them were in ICE custody.

Among those roaming free in addition to the murderers were 62,231
individuals with assault charges or convictions and 56,533 with drug
charges or convictions.

The Department of Homeland Security claims it has deported 180,000 people
with criminal convictions since Biden took office, but many of those were
simply turned around at the border, not arrested in the interior. The
bottom line is that the Biden administration is letting criminal aliens in
faster than they are removing them.

One reason for this is that ICE was given instructions from Homeland
Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that significantly restrict its
enforcement efforts. Another is that ICE officers have regularly been
pulled off enforcement duties to instead process the unprecedented numbers
of aliens trying to get into the U.S.�all to feed what I call the
�Mayorkas Migration Machine�s� relentless effort to release into the
country as many inadmissible aliens as possible.

525,000 � The rough number of unaccompanied alien children Biden�s DHS has
brought in since 2021 (see the chart below). It was 425,000 when I wrote
�BorderLine� No. 3 a little less than a year ago. The government has spent
billions of your tax dollars bringing them in and providing them with
public services. In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com estimated that the Office of
Refugee Resettlement was spending $18,000 per child, or almost $3 billion,
back then for their initial settlement in the U.S.

Scandalously, hundreds of thousands of these minors have been released to
people claiming to be their parents or guardians, but with little
oversight. DHS hands them over to the Department of Health and Human
Services� Office of Refugee Settlement. They�ve tried to check in with
these kids since releasing them but failed to reach 90,000 of the self-
proclaimed guardians. That means they�ve lost track of as many kids as
there are in the entire Denver, Colorado, school system. And when the
government does reach someone, they�re hardly verifying anything�just
asking a few basic questions with no verification to make sure it�s true
or that the kids are safe.

Many children become trafficked for sex or labor.

11 million � The number of illegal alien encounters at the border since
Biden and Harris took office. That does not include those who crossed the
border illegally but went undetected.

A year ago, I wrote that �On Mayorkas� � watch, we have set the record for
the most yearly illegal alien encounters in U.S. history. If those caught
in 2023 formed a new city, it would the third biggest in America, behind
only New York and Los Angeles.�

The number of �encounters� includes the 75,000 or so inadmissible aliens
being paroled into the country per month. Of those caught at the border,
we don�t know exactly how many were released into the country. In August
2023, The Wall Street Journal estimated that 75% of inadmissible aliens
caught at the border entering illegally were let in by DHS. In December
2023, Mayorkas testified that they actually were releasing �over 85%.�

Even if you take the lower percentage, when you add to that the over total
2 million �gotaways� who entered without detection during the Biden-Harris
administration (compared to a total of 415,000 for 2018, 2019, and 2020
combined during the Trump administration) and another 1.5 million let in
by Biden�s parole programs, that could mean up to 9 million inadmissible
foreign nationals�known in U.S. immigration law as �aliens��are now living
in the United States. That�s equivalent to the population of some entire
countries�Austria, Hungary, or Israel, for example. Of course, that�s just
the additions since Biden and Harris took office and doesn�t include the
12-20 million who were here illegally already.

It�s hard to imagine what these numbers will look like when it�s time to
write �BorderLine� No. 104 a year from now, but only major policy changes
can turn the trend away from our continued descent into an unmanageable
migration morass.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/04/borderline-anniversary-column-
revisiting-bidens-border-numbers-one-year-later/