The Biden administration was dealt a severe blow at the southern border in July as the number of immigrants encountered by U.S. authorities while attempting to enter from Mexico illegally soared following an initial decline at the conclusion of Title 42 in May.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics released Friday afternoon revealed that Border Patrol agents arrested 132,652 immigrants between the ports of entry in July, up from 99,545 arrests in June.
MAUI FIRES: EMERGENCY OFFICIAL WHO DECLINED TO SOUND SIRENS RESIGNS
Biden administration officials at the Department of Homeland Security defended the increase as being down 27% from last July and lower than when they hit the highest levels in a century in the lead-up to May 11.
"The administration's strategy on the border is working. The border is not open, but as with every year, we are seeing ebbs and flows of migrants arriving, and that's fueled by seasonal trends and the efforts of smugglers to encourage migration," a DHS official said in a call with media Friday afternoon.
The new numbers are on par with a prediction then-U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz made in early June during a private briefing with lawmakers that the Biden administration's success would be short-lived.
The spike poses new problems for the White House as it tried to incentivize immigrants to apply to the Biden administration's legal immigration pathways after Title 42 concluded.
It also spells trouble for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was given a short-lived reprieve from congressional Republicans' fury over the high border crossings after arrests dipped earlier this summer.
Title 42 was initially implemented in March 2020 and allowed border officials to turn away any illegal immigrant rather than take people into custody and risk spreading the coronavirus in confined settings. With Title 42 gone, the Biden administration vowed to remove illegal immigrants who did not seek asylum.
Republicans had feared a surge of immigrants would try to cross after Title 42, but instead, the surge of people came in the weeks leading up.
The DHS had planned for up to 18,000 immigrant apprehensions per day post-Title 42. In the final days of the policy, the Border Patrol set record highs as upwards of 11,000 people were taken into custody daily.
After Title 42 ended, arrests unexpectedly dropped to 3,700 per day, and the DHS took a victory lap.
"As a result of planning and execution — which combined stiffer consequences for unlawful entry with a historic expansion of lawful pathways and processes — unlawful entries between ports of entry along the Southwest Border have decreased by more than 70 percent since May 11," DHS had said in a statement.
The Biden administration attributed the drop to its implementation of new legal pathways for admission that led many would-be illegal crossers to apply through these new channels rather than enter illegally, including allowing immigrants in northern Mexico to apply for appointments with U.S. customs officers who would determine if they were eligible for parole release into the country and other programs.
One such initiative was the CBP One app, which immigrants could use to schedule appointments. In July, 44,700 immigrants arrived at a port of entry for an appointment — people who may have crossed illegally had it not been for this legal avenue. The app is not for seeking asylum, which anyone can do at a port of entry or after entering the country unlawfully.
Republicans have criticized the CBP One app as a shell game for the Biden administration to waive in immigrants through a parole process that they have said was not meant to be used on a wide scale.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But the July numbers indicate White House policies are sending border numbers in the wrong direction and not back to pre-pandemic levels.
Since Biden took office in 2021, border arrests have fluctuated month to month from 150,000 to 300,000 compared to fewer than 50,000 arrests per month seen during most of the 2010s.