Biden's Border Crisis: Catch-and-Release Up Over 430,000% in August 2021 Compared to August 2020
President Joe Biden’s border crisis has been no secret since March, and the data about how disastrous it is continues to flow in.
A recent Washington Times analysis compared how many illegal immigrants the Biden administration released into the United States after being detained by Border Patrol with the number released under the Trump administration in August 2020.
Unfortunately, the numbers are concerning, but not shocking.
Last August, the Trump administration “caught” 47,000 migrants at southern border, but only released 10 of them into the United States immediately.
This was a result of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, in which migrants were required to wait in Mexico while awaiting their immigration hearing.
By contrast, the Biden administration detained 195,000 migrants and released 43,941 of them into the United States.
The outlet reported that this is an increase of more than 430,000 percent.
“If you tell the migrant they’re not going to be released, they’re not going to come. If a migrant knows they will not be released into the United States awaiting their immigration process, they will not come,” said Mark Morgan, the former acting head of Customs and Border Protection under Trump, according to the Times.
Morgan is correct that this figure is the result of Biden scrapping the “Remain in Mexico” policy almost immediately after taking office, with the change going into full effect back in June, CNN reported.
The opposite of “Remain in Mexico” is commonly referred to as “Catch and Release,” which raises numerous concerns about everything from crime to an unexpected population spike in communities across America.
The Supreme Court ordered the policy to be put back in place at the end of August, saying that the White House likely broke federal law by getting rid of it, the Associated Press reported.
However, the executive branch plans to scrap the policy for a second time once the court’s injunction is over, according to The Hill.
“A new memorandum terminating MPP will not take effect until the current injunction is lifted by court order,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“In issuing a new memorandum terminating MPP, the Department intends to address the concerns raised by the courts with respect to the prior memorandum.”
MPP is a reference to Migrant Protection Protocols, which is the formal name for “Remain in Mexico.”
Title 42 is one of the few bold policies that remains in place from the Trump era that allows for migrants to be quickly removed from the U.S. if there is a serious health risk in the migrants’ home country.
Of course, that serious health risk is currently COVID-19, but that measure has done little to prevent the crisis from escalating.
The Washington Times’s comparison of just two months shows the stark contrast between conservative and liberal immigration policies, and Americans should take note.
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