NBC News reported that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday said that the U.S. is expected to reach the highest number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in two decades.

Just how many is that?

Twenty years ago, in 2001, border apprehensions reached 170,580 in the month of March.

Here's how that looks on our monthly graph:

A level of 170,000 would be almost twice that of March 2019, during the surge of the Trump administration, which itself was the highest level since 2007. It is not an exaggeration to describe the situation as disastrous.

There has been some attempt to blame events on the Trump administration. In fact, the 2018 Sabraw ruling and the 2019 Omnibus bill largely gutted Border Patrol's ability to control the border with respect to minors and families. The Trump administration responded by jerry-rigging administrative procedures to compensate, including migrant camps in Mexico and strong-arming Guatemalan and Mexican authorities to clamp down on migrant caravans. The Biden administration in essence removed the pressure on the tourniquet, with the result that migrants are now gushing over the border.

The Biden administration has days to weeks to get the situation under control. As I have said before, expect the administration to turn back to the Trump playbook, with some fairly nasty policies to come.

And again, let me reiterate that all this could be solved in short order without draconian measures and to broad public satisfaction using a market-based visa program.