Customs and Border Protection, just a few months ago, was able to issue southwest border apprehensions data by around the 12th of the month. We are heading into the 24th with nary a peep, save for numbers from a court filing (via Fox News and an analysis worth reading from CIS's Andrew Arthur).
According to the court filing, 170,191 persons were apprehended at the US southwest border in December. This is 4,400 higher than the previous month and a record over the next highest December by 100,000. That is, December apprehensions were 140% higher than the previous record December and were running at a pace 4.4 times the historical average for the month.
Southwest border apprehensions for calendar year 2021 came in at 1.944 million, a staggering 333,000 above the prior record of 1.610 million set in 2000 during the Clinton administration.
This month we make our first preliminary forecast for both fiscal and calendar year 2022. Since March 2021, apprehensions have averaged a stratospheric 177,000 / month, with a minimum of 160,000 and a maximum of 200,000. Given the comparatively steady pace of apprehensions, we might expect recent experience under the Biden administration to continue. Under such circumstances, we forecast 2.1 million apprehensions for both calendar year and fiscal year 2022, both records besting not only all other administrations, but even the Biden administration's disastrous first year.
Our forecast above assumes ordinary seasonality in apprehensions, but normal variations have been less visible during the Biden administration: every month is similarly abysmal. However, should seasonality hold, the administration will be seeing monthly records right into the summer and a new fiscal year record being published two weeks before the November elections. Democrats should put themselves on suicide watch.
It is hard to overstate the disgrace of the Biden administration's border policy. This cannot be attributed merely to political party. Bill Clinton saw a similar surge in 2000, but had materially tamped it down by year-end. President Obama dealt with a much smaller surge in 2014, restoring order to the border in less than three months. This is not a matter of Democrats or Republicans, but rather the unbending incompetence of the Biden administration, whether in covid or economic management, border control, or even mundane regulatory matters like adjudicating 5G bandwidth around airports. It is a tragedy of poor judgment and a complete absence of technical and related political skills.
And where is DHS? They are hiding in their cubbies, fearful of the political blowback of the data they are to publish. They are sitting on the numbers. They know that a piece entitled something like "Apprehensions Record!" is coming, and it will paint an ugly picture of this administration. And it's worse than that. Secretary Mayorkas has declared that illegals can no longer be detained by ICE purely for being in the US undocumented. That is, a migrant can come to the border and claim asylum and enter the country in full confidence that ICE has been neutered, allowing the undocumented to stay in the country indefinitely. For that reason, the White House is yet to issue the ICE annual report, which was finished months ago, according to a former ICE director.
This is absolutely appalling. Stand up, Secretary Mayorkas, and own this disgrace. Stand with President Biden and own this incompetence, and apologize to long-time undocumented residents who have lost any hope of legal status for the balance of the decade. This is the brutal reality. The Democrats lack the votes for any sort of amnesty this year. After November, the Democrats may hold hardly more than 160 seats in the House, and may not see a majority again for a decade. In the meantime, the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene will set the tone, which will be geared to dishing vengeance against the Biden administration and the progressive caucus. One object of this venom will be the flood of illegal immigrants in the country. No one is going to want to talk about DACA and the Dreamers. Not for years.
This was an entirely avoidable outcome. There was considerable sympathy for the long-time undocumented who are law-abiding and constructive members of society. The House votes were more than adequate, and a sufficient number of Senate Republicans -- the Romney Faction -- were willing to grant at least some legal status, amnesty if you will. It would not have covered everyone, but a tranche of 700,000 resident visas was within reach. Perhaps as many as 1.2 million. Biden merely needed to reach across the aisle and work on policy acceptable to the Romney Faction. Instead, the Biden administration has taken the my-way-or-the-highway approach, and gotten nothing for it. In mistaking anarchy for compassion as border policy, the Biden administration has stabbed the Dreamers in the back.