In our extensive coverage of the border crisis under President Biden, we often reference the astounding numbers of 'known got-aways' that have entered the country illegally since 2021. Illegal crossings have always been a problem, to some extent, as has the phenomenon of unlawful migrants entering the country without being apprehended by authorities. But the scandal of the current catastrophe lies in the extent to which these problems have exploded -- not an uptick or an increase, but an explosion -- under the current administration. In an exclusive report, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin obtained the known got-away statistics over the past decade-plus, spanning three presidencies.
The trend line is not subtle. It illustrates precisely why this mess has aptly and deservedly dubbed the Biden Border Crisis. He owns this trajectory:
EXCLUSIVE: Internal CBP data I obtained via FOIA request reveals 13 years of known gotaways data at the border, showing gotaways have *exploded* under the Biden admin compared to the Trump & Obama years.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 15, 2024
This is the first time these numbers have ever been revealed.
FY2010… pic.twitter.com/LUQU5v87b2
As you can see, the recorded got-aways ranged from approximately 86,000 to 171,000 annually, between 2010 and 2020. Starting in Fiscal Year 2021 (Biden was inaugurated in January 2021) the number shot up to north of 387,000. The following year, it spiked dramatically to over 600,000, then more than 670,000 in 2023. The number of got-aways that we know of who crossed illegally and unabated into the country last fiscal year was roughly quadruple the worst single-year number over the entire 2010-2020 decade. As I mentioned above, crossings and got-aways didn't merely creep up or rise on Biden's watch; they soared, sharply. Crossings and got-aways are related issues, of course, because the more time, energy and resources officials expend encountering and processing illegal immigrants, the less ability and wherewithal they have to prevent and pursue got-aways. More context from Fox:
In FY 2020, there were 136,808 gotaways at the border. That number then rose to 387,398 in FY 2021, which coincided with the last months of the Trump administration and the first months of the Biden administration. As the migrant numbers at the southern border rose to crisis levels, so did the number of gotaways -- with numbers then skyrocketing to 606,131 in FY 2022 and 670,674 in FY 23. This means that there were more gotaways in FY21-23 (1.6 million) than the decade [between] FY 2010 and FY 2020 (1.4 million).
With known-gotaways this fiscal year approaching 200,000 thus far, plus an unknowable number of unknown got-aways, the total number of illegal immigrants who've entered the country under Biden is almost certainly at or above two million. Not every illegal immigrant poses a public safety or national security risk, obviously. Most do not. But some do, and they're disproportionately represented among the got-aways, as people with criminal backgrounds and problematic affiliations pay the cartels a premium to avoid capture. Stories like this underscore the dangers of an uncontrolled border:
The Marine Corps prevented two people from breaking onto a Marine installation in Virginia on May 3 and turned them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...Because the two had no affiliation with the Marine base and no credentials to enter it, military police officers directed them to go to a holding area to undergo standard vetting procedures, according to Curtis. But the driver blew past the holding area and attempted to drive onto the base...Potomac Local News, which first reported the attempted breach, reported hearing from multiple unnamed sources that one of the truck’s occupants was a Jordanian national who had recently crossed the southern border into the United States and that one occupant was on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list.
Nothing to see here -- just an illegall immigrant "newcomer" from the Middle East and another man on the US terror watch list trying to force themselves onto a military base. The pair has been turned over to ICE. Our government has no idea who any of these people are, why they came here illegally, or where they're now located inside the United States:
When @USBPChief Jason Owens said that the disastrous number of gotaways is what keeps him up at night, this is what he was talking about.
— House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) May 15, 2024
The consequences of this catastrophe will be felt for years to come. https://t.co/5XuxchYt2b
I'll leave you with this -- without further comment:
Mayor Adams suggests migrants could fill NYC’s lifeguard shortage — because ‘they’re excellent swimmers’ https://t.co/bYIVv5UtTE pic.twitter.com/6D2nbyuXf7
— New York Post (@nypost) May 14, 2024
