The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that 240,988 illegal immigrants were encountered at our Southern Border in October, making it the highest total for October in Department of Homeland Security history. This report is further confirmation that Joe Biden’s Far Left open border policies are not working and comes just a month after CBP reported that in Fiscal Year 2023, there were 2.48 million illegal immigrant encounters, the highest annual total ever recorded in a single year. 

BIDEN’S BORDER CRISIS BY THE NUMBERS:

• Since Joe Biden took office:
• There have been 7.8 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide.
• There have been OVER 6.5 MILLION illegal crossings of our Southern Border.
• There have been 1.7 million known gotaways who evaded U.S. Border Patrol.  
• In October there were 240,988 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern Border. 
• This is a 235% increase from October 2020. 
• October was the 32nd straight month, where monthly illegal immigrant encounters have been higher than even the highest month seen under President Trump. 
• In October, 12 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. 
• So far under Biden, 279 of these individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the Southern Border.
• In FY23, 169 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the Southern Border, an all time record. 
• This total is more than the encounters in all FY17, FY18, FY19, FY20, FY21, and FY22 combined. 
• Biden’s Far Left open border policies are to blame for this historic crisis. 
• During Biden’s first 100 days in office, he took 94 executive actions on immigration, including halting the construction of the border wall. 
• In August 2022, Biden and his Administration decided to make the border crisis WORSE by formally ending former President Trump’s successful ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.
• The Biden Administration announced on May 10, 2023, that it would allow for the release of some migrants into the U.S. with no way to track them. 
• Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has now admitted that 40 percent of catch-and-release migrants have disappeared. 
• Despite this historic crisis Joe Biden has only visited the southern border ONCE, and it was widely panned as nothing more than a photo-op.  

House Republicans continue to provide critical oversight of President Biden and his Administration, delivering the transparency and accountability that the American people demand and deserve. 

Earlier this week, the House Committee on Homeland Security, led by Chairman Mark E. Green (R-TN), continued this important work by releasing an interim report on the fourth phase of their oversight investigation into the causes, costs, and consequences of Joe Biden, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Extreme Democrats’ open border policies that have created an unprecedented crisis at our Northern and Southern Borders is costing Americans $451 billion a year. 

THE COST OF THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS (Courtesy of House Homeland Security Republicans): 

• Illegal aliens represent a major strain on local health care systems, as federal law requires that hospitals and emergency rooms provide these individuals with care, even if they are uninsured and cannot pay for it.
• Yuma Regional Medical Center President and CEO, Robert Trenschel testified to the House Committee on Homeland Security in February 2023, that his facility had incurred more than $26 million in unreimbursed costs caring for illegal aliens.
• New York City hospitals have recorded approximately 30,000 visits from illegal aliens in the past year.
• Medicaid expenditures on “emergency services” for illegal aliens have exceeded $12 billion just since fiscal year 2021.
• The law enforcement costs associated with illegal immigration are not just those directly associated with border security, such as the CBP budget, but the increased costs to state and local law enforcement. 
• In Arizona’s Cochise County, “border related booking costs” in 2022 totaled $4.3 million, with 1,578 suspects being booked into the county jail for “border-related crimes.”
• The state of Florida spends more than $100 million every year to incarcerate criminal aliens in its state prisons, with very little of this cost being reimbursed by the federal government.
• New York City police officers could lose upwards of $700 million in overtime pay if Mayor Eric Adams’ suggested five-percent pay cuts across the board, in order to pay the costs of illegal aliens arriving in the city, take effect.
• Costs of providing education services to illegal alien children, or the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, represent enormous expenditures for the states and the federal government. 
• Students with limited proficiency in English represent additional costs for education systems. One report found that the cost to educate these students rose to around $78 billion last year.
• The devastation to private property, particularly ranches and farming operations along the Southwest border, has represented an unprecedented and daily challenge for the citizens of border states.  
• Ranchers are often forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to repair fences damaged by smugglers or illegal aliens trespassing on their property. One rancher has said it costs him $26,000 to repair one mile of fencing.  
• Cities and states are assuming massive costs to house and provide services to illegal aliens being released by DHS into their communities rather than being detained. 
• New York City is on track to spend more than $12 billion by 2025 on the tens of thousands of illegal aliens arriving in the city since spring 2022.
• Chicago is spending more than $20 million per month to “house and support” illegal aliens.
• Costs for Washington, D.C. were expected to exceed $52 million by October 2023.
• Total costs just to provide services like these to the illegal aliens released under Mayorkas’ policies, along with the 1.7 million known gotaways, could exceed $451 billion per year, per one estimate.

MAKE NO MISTAKE: House Republicans will continue to fight to secure our border, and eliminate the financial burden illegal immigrants are putting on American taxpayers. That is why we passed the Secure the Border Act, which is the strongest border security package in American history. 

FACTS ABOUT THE SECURE THE BORDER ACT OF 2023:

• Force the Biden Administration to restart construction of the border wall.
• Deploy technology to the Southern and Northern border.
• Increase the number of Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay.
• Require transparency regarding illegal crossings from the Department of Homeland Security.
• Strengthen current law to protect unaccompanied children from human trafficking.
• End catch and release.
• End abuse of executive immigration authority.
• Strengthen and streamline the asylum process.