Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under President Biden’s watch, a number greater than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis finds.
That figure comes from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has already reported 961,537 border encounters in the current fiscal year, which runs from October through September.
If the current pace of illegal immigration does not slow down, fiscal year 2024 will break last year’s record of 2,475,669 southwest border encounters — a number that by itself exceeds the population of New Mexico, a border state.
The total number of southwest land border encounters since Biden assumed office in 2021 is 7,298,486, CBP data shows.
That is larger than the population of 36 U.S. states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Migrants are sent back by the Texas National Guard to the Rio Grande after entering El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.
A surge in immigration has fueled a humanitarian crisis and emerged as a key issue in this year’s presidential election, with Republicans ramping up their attacks on President Joe Biden’s handling of rising border crossings. (Justin Hamel/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Compared to the largest U.S. states, the 7.3 million number is about 18.7% of California’s population of 39 million, 23.9% of the state of Texas and its 31 million residents, 32.3% of the population of Florida and 37.3% of New York. It’s more than half the size of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio.
Were the number of illegal immigrants who entered the United States under President Biden gathered together to found a city, it would be the second-largest city in America after New York.
And the total does not include an estimated additional 1.8 million known “gotaways” who evaded law enforcement, which would make it bigger than New York.
Taken together, nearly 10 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. illegally during the Biden administration, a record Biden’s critics assert could only be achieved by intentionally refusing to enforce the law.
“This unprecedented surge in illegal immigration isn’t an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration,” said Eric Ruark, Director of Research for Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration restrictions. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
