In the latest data reported by the United States Customers and Border Patrol, encounters with migrants along the southwest border were found to have dropped again, hitting their lowest level in almost four years.
The July data was released last Friday and follows the executive action President Joe Biden took back in June to address the growing crisis at the border.
“In July, the Border Patrol recorded 56,408 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border,” CBP said in a press release. “This is the lowest monthly total since September 2020.”
In Biden’s executive action, migrants who are illegally going over the southern border are now turned away during periods of large numbers of encounters.
He also revamped who can seek asylum in the US, making it easy for CBP officers to deport those entering the country illegally.
Speaking directly about the action from Biden, Troy Miller, the acting CBP Commissioner, said that last month, “our border security measures enhanced our ability to deliver consequences for illegal entry – leading to the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in more than three years.”
“We are working closely with international partners to go after transnational criminal organizations that traffic in chaos and prioritize profit over human lives, and this month announced enhanced enforcement efforts to attack the fentanyl supply chain,” Miller said in a statement. “These efforts are seeing results, as CBP saw the largest fentanyl seizure in our agency’s history just a few weeks ago. We remain vigilant in these efforts alongside our partners.”
For months, lawmakers have remained stagnant when it comes to passing legislation to address the crisis at the border.
Within the last year, a bipartisan bill on border security was voted down twice in the Senate, most recently in February after former President Donald Trump said the latest version of the bill was a “Death Wish for The Republican Party.”
“Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill, which only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day when we already have the right to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW, which must be done,” the former president said on Truth Social at the time.
While announcing his executive order at the beginning of June, President Biden blamed the Republican nominee for the issue not being solved despite bipartisan efforts.
“After weeks of intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats and Republicans, we came to a clear — clear bipartisan deal that was the strongest border security agreement in decades. But then Republicans in Congress — not all, but — walked away from it.” Biden said earlier this summer. “Why? Because Donald Trump told them to. He told the Republicans — it has been published widely by many of you — that he didn’t want to fix the issue; he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was a cynical and a – extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people, who are looking for us to — not to weaponize the border but to fix it.”