Customs and Border Protection reported 207,597 apprehensions at the US southwest border for the month of September. This bests by 22,000 the prior record for the month, set last year by the Biden administration. Moreover, September apprehensions came in 50,000 above our forecast of 157,000. This is our biggest miss of the year and reflects an accelerating pace of apprehensions when they should be declining seasonally. That is, since July, the relative pace of apprehensions has been accelerating even compared to the stratospheric levels now normal in the Biden administration. This speaks to both a strong US labor market and deteriorating enforcement at the border.
As expected, for the fiscal year ending September 30th, the Biden administration has set a new record for apprehensions at 2,206,436. This shatters the prior record of 1,658,206 set by the Biden administration last year. Indeed, fiscal year 2022 apprehensions ran at five times the pace of the Obama administration and four times that of the Trump administration. Apprehensions under the Biden administration are not merely worse than under his predecessors, they are in an entirely different class. Nevertheless, apprehensions came in just above our forecast of this past January. We anticipated 2.1 million apprehensions, thereby undershooting the actual number by 0.1 million. The difference is due principally to the super surge of the last three months.
It is early to make a prediction for FY 2023 apprehensions. Certainly, the short-term trend suggests next year could post yet another record. Nevertheless, we are currently anticipating a sharp economic downturn from Q1, and apprehensions tend to track US job openings. Therefore, we are penciling a decline in apprehensions for 2023, and therefore FY 2022 may become the all-time record holder in the long term. Not a record the Biden administration may wish to own.
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Inadmissibles, those presenting themselves at official border crossings without appropriate documentation, has also been running hot. For the month of September, Customs and Border Protection reported 19,950 inadmissibles at the US southwest border, once again a record for the month stretching back to 2012, which is as far as our monthly data extends. For the fiscal year, inadmissibles totaled 172,508, 12% higher than the previous record set under the Obama administration. That these numbers are so high once again suggests that entry conditions are permissive at the border. Undocumented migrants are attempting to cross at official entry points because they are aware their chances of success are relatively high by historical standards.
One struggles to comprehend what the Biden administration is thinking. Many months ago, I wrote that the Biden administration was likely to set an all-time record for border apprehensions, and that the fiscal year numbers would be published within three weeks of the election, thereby ensuring that the Democrats would take a hit in the midterms. And so it has proved. By rights, the administration should have substantially tightened border control for the last two months to depress the apprehension numbers heading into November. Just the opposite has happened. The data show deteriorating conditions, even compared to the lofty standard the administration has set. Why? It speaks not only to an indifference towards public sentiment, but to visible incompetence in the administration. September's numbers were not only bad policy, they are bad politics.
Finally, I wrote more than a year ago that open borders would torpedo the prospects for both DACA and Dreamers-related legislation. And so it has proved. With a majority in both houses and many Republicans sympathetic to the plight of DACA participants, the Biden administration had an opportunity to pass legislation normalizing the status of at least those in the DACA program, and perhaps as many as two million undocumented immigrants in total. Given the choice, however, the administration chose to keep the border open and thereby make the topic of status normalization radioactive. Republicans will likely take the House and possibly the Senate in the midterms. As a result, the window for normalization is likely to remain shut, possibly to 2030 or beyond, as I wrote well over a year ago. Here, too, open borders proved both bad policy and bad politics.
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I personally like Joe Biden, even in his increasingly fossilized state. Moreover, I worry that Republicans believe that America can prosper and be a decent country without democracy. As someone whose family endured fascism and lost everything to communism in Hungary and later struggled under Argentina's Personist populism, I value democracy and sound governance. I take none of it for granted. Those who are enamored with autocracy are fools. Nevertheless, democracy has to translate into competence and values acceptable to the median voter. If the Average Joe believes that democracy no longer serves his interests, then the republic will struggle to survive. Those who value our democratic traditions need to keep that in mind.