Enron at the Border: Biden Admin Using Accounting Schemes to Hide Illegal Entries from the Public

FAIR Research Summary

For many years, the monthly number of encounters at the Southwest border has been used as a barometer for border security in general. This number doesn’t include the tens of thousands of border “gotaways” every month or those who overstay their visas, but it allowed the public to see roughly how well the administration in power was securing America’s border with Mexico. For this reason, the Biden administration is now literally flying illegal aliens from certain countries directly into American cities to gaslight the American people into thinking that encounters are decreasing, and therefore that the crisis is improving.

The border situation has gotten worse in every way under the Biden administration, as a new issue brief from FAIR clearly shows. However, the Biden administration won’t even pretend to physically secure the border. Instead, they announced several dubious schemes that allow the same number of illegal aliens to enter the country, but hide those numbers from the public. The administration calls these “enforcement programs”, but their real purpose is to protect them from criticism for the ongoing border crisis without actually taking steps to solve it.

In a blatant misuse of authority, the Biden administration is now allowing tens of thousands of people of certain nationalities to skip the border and fly directly into the U.S. on “parole” with no visa or legal status. The number of illegal aliens entering the country on these flights is not publicly released, although FAIR’s research team is working to determine the total. The administration’s “CBP One” app also lets foreigners enter the U.S. while they wait for their likely-fraudulent asylum cases to be processed far in the future. The result of these schemes is nothing more than a massive shell game perpetrated on Americans.

In January 2023, Customs and Border Enforcement (CBP) announced that just over 156,000 illegal aliens were encountered at our Southwest border. This may seem like a significant drop from December 2022’s quarter-million total (the highest in history), but that is far from the case. Virtually all of the “decrease” is simply because the administration has shifted illegal aliens into these categories that are not publicly tracked. It’s also important to note that even with this new creative accounting, the total number of January “encounters” still constitutes the most ever for that month.

A deceptive numbers game on the border isn’t necessarily a new tactic. When under pressure on border issues, earlier administrations have tried to skew statistics in their favor without implementing real reform. The Obama administration, for example, framed illegal crossers expelled at the border as “deportations,” thereby making it appear as if they were removing more immigration lawbreakers.

Despite attempts to hide or otherwise falsify border data, the little information still released by CBP indicates that the crisis on the border continues to worsen. For example, the number of individuals from Mexico encountered at the border increased by 27 percent in January. Considering that Mexico (which is not currently included in the administration’s plans to let illegal aliens bypass the border) remains the largest source of illegal immigration into the country, this further reinforces the fact that apprehensions primarily decreased because the Biden administration has told many illegal aliens that they can bypass the border altogether. Moreover, CBP apprehended 15 illegal aliens with ties to terrorism in January. That’s only two fewer than were apprehended in December, and more than the cumulative total apprehended from 2017-2020.

Public information on the demographics of those crossing the border has also been reduced. In previous years, CBP’s public dashboard included much more detailed information on the nationality of illegal alien encounters. However, the vast majority of arrivals are now listed as having “other” citizenship, with only a few nationalities from Central America receiving their own categories. Not surprisingly, apprehension data for countries where illegal aliens are now allowed to fly directly into the United States from is – as of last month – no longer publicly available. Additionally, growing numbers of people from openly hostile nations like Russia and China are attempting to cross illegally, but the administration does not publicly release apprehension data regarding these countries either.

Even though January’s total encounters were still a record for that month, the real story is what the numbers didn’t show. Truly secure borders don’t require creative accounting schemes or hidden data. The lengths the Biden administration has gone to in order to conceal their border security failure shows that their paramount concern is to serve the interests of the mass-immigration lobby, even if that requires lying to the American people.