(NewsNation) — The Biden administration recently touted cutting unlawful border entries by in large numbers — but critics say the way officials are crunching the numbers is giving the wrong impression.
“As a result of planning and execution—which combined stiffer consequences for unlawful entry with a historic expansion of lawful pathways and processes— unlawful entries between ports of entry along the Southwest Border have decreased by more than 70% since May 11,” the Department of Homeland Security said in June.
May 11 is when Title 42, a border policy enacted under former President Donald Trump allowing migrants to be turned away on public health grounds, expired.
However, despite what DHS says, some people wonder if the federal government just increased the amount of people being let in lawfully with a wave of the policy wand, instead of actually solving the issue of illegal crossings.
GOP lawmakers like Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., have said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is playing a “shell game in the way numbers of people coming across the border are documented and reported.”
“To reclassify illegal entry as those that have entered by a legal pathway and then tell the American people, ‘the numbers are way down; we have this thing under control.’ This is misleading by design,” Higgins said at a hearing last month.
Specifically, what Higgins took issue with is an expansion of the CBP One app, which allows asylum-seekers to legally “move to the front of the line at ports of entry.”
Customs and Border Protection is now allowing 1,450 migrants to make an appointment with the app each day— that is up from 1,000 just last week.
“CBP is expanding the number of available appointments at ports of entry for the second time in less than two months, through scheduling enhancements and operational efficiencies,” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy A. Miller said in a statement. “By utilizing innovative technologies like CBP One, we are improving the delivery of our homeland security mission and providing for safe and efficient processes at ports of entry.”
This bump in app appointments means nearly 530,000 people are walking across ports of entry into the United States a year.
It’s a move that’s been made legal under the current administration, which set out to create a legal pathway for migrants while an immigration reform package is stalled in Congress.
Encounters across the southern border are hovering around 3,400 each day, which is back to “normal” levels before the end of Title 42. In Texas’ Del Rio Sector, Eagle Pass is seeing large groups once again. Agents tell NewsNation’s Ali Bradley they are still processing and transporting migrants when they should be in the field patrolling.
Charles Marino, CEO of Sentinel Security Solutions, said the CBP One app is allowing migrants to come into the country “under the guise of asylum.”
“We know the immigration hearings are backlogged anywhere from seven to 10 years now,” Marino said. “So once they get in the country, these migrants are going to remain.”
CBP, meanwhile, has said the app provides meaningful access to noncitizens that is “consistent with the law.”
