As debates rage on immigration policy, President Joe Biden and federal lawmakers have made recent trips to the Southwest border.
US Senator Jerry Moran has been part of a bipartisan trip to discuss the issues specifically at the border. One concern he has is China’s involvement with Mexican drug cartels.
Audio from Fox News.
Moran sees several major issues coming together for policy — including immigration, humanitarian matters and national security. He criticized President Joe Biden for not responding adequately enough to the crisis or demonstrating much urgency on the matter during the president’s recent visit to El Paso.
In its November monthly operational update released just before Christmas, US Customs and Border Patrol announced almost 2.8 million “encounters” for fiscal 2022, meaning Oct. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2022, involving Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations. Over 2.4 million of those encounters — apprehensions, “inadmissibles” and expulsions — took place at the Southwest border. Already since Oct. 1, there have been over 560,000 encounters — with over 410,000 along the Southwest border.
Pew Research says unauthorized immigration climbed from 3.5 million people in 1990 to over 12 million in 2007 before stabilizing between 10-11 million per year, including 1.5 mllion people with temporary permission to stay in the United States and people awaiting decisions on asylum applications. Pew’s last data set invovled 2017 figures with 10.5 million unathorized immigrants.
*Click here for a link to the US Customs and Border Patrol page for total enforcements.
*Click here for a link to the US Customs and Border Patrol page for Southwest Land Border enforcements.
*Click here for a link to Pew Research information on unauthorized immigration.
