More ‘Gotaways’ During the First Three Years of the Biden Administration Than in Previous Decade
New data, uncovered by Bill Melugin of Fox News, reveals that in the first three years of the Biden Administration (fiscal years 2021-2023), more illegal border-crossers evaded apprehension than in the previous eleven years combined. Despite the fact that these aliens were able to slip past border agents, the government tallies these so-called ‘gotaways’ when it is able to detect their presence through video surveillance, radar, plain eyesight, etc. The data was finally uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act Request made by Fox News.
The spike in gotaways began immediately after President Biden’s election. In FY 2020, the last full year of the Trump administration, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded 136,808 gotaways. The following year (the last eight months of which were under the Biden administration) that figure jumped to 387,398. By FY 2023, the number had exploded to 670,674, representing a 409 percent increase over the final full year of the Trump administration. In contrast, during the 11 years before President Biden took office – spanning the Obama and Trump administrations – a combined total of 1,410,049 of known ‘gotaways’ gained entry to the United States.
The sheer volume of gotaways is concerning on its own. For example, the FY 2024 figure is equivalent to the entire population of Boston. And, at a time when most illegal migrants willingly surrender to Border Patrol, knowing that filing an asylum claim – even a bogus one – will likely result in release from custody and taxpayer-funded transportation to their preferred destination within the United States, those who elude apprehension generally have a good reason for not wanting to be caught. These tend to be people with easily detected criminal records or associations with terrorist organizations that will result in removal or prolonged detention.
The increase in people successfully eluding capture by CBP is also a direct result of policies that have encouraged a massive influx of economic migrants. While CBP manpower and other resources are tied up processing and releasing millions of asylum abusers and unaccompanied minors, there are fewer agents on the border catching people who pose a greater danger to the country, and interdicting the flow of lethal narcotics.