[Hoot Gibson]

The Biden administration is doing everything in its power to open our borders to illegal aliens. Illegal border crossings have reached a 20-year high and have more than doubled since he took office.

Most Americans think surge of illegal border crossings is a crisis

Is there a border crisis? According to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, there isn’t — but the illegal crossing numbers indicate that there is.

Illegal border crossings have reached a 20-year high. In the four months before Biden took office, illegal crossings averaged 70,000 a month. The number rose to 97,640 in February, the first full month of Biden’s presidency; to 169,204 in March; and to 173,686 in April; and it was 172,011 in May.

Recidivism

Mayorkas claims that the numbers are misleading because they include the recidivists who make more than one illegal crossing.

Recidivism is becoming a major problem. Approximately 38 percent of the illegal crossers arrested in May had tried to cross at least one other time in the past year. That’s up from an average one-year recidivism rate of 15 percent between 2014 and 2019.

But the surge in recidivism is not a mitigating factor. It is part of the crisis.

It is happening because undocumented migrants can make as many illegal crossings as they want without fear of consequences. Illegal entry is a crime, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona didn’t prosecute any illegal crossers in May.

This encourages illegal crossers to keep trying until they succeed. Border security measures are meaningless when the people who are deported today can come back tomorrow.