Kamala Harris has been handed a win in one of her toughest campaign issues, as the latest data shows the administration’s efforts to stem record levels of illegal immigration appear to be paying off.
Since President Biden’s executive order imposing stricter asylum rules in June, migration numbers have dropped significantly. However, Republican criticisms of Harris’s tenure as “border czar,” and voters’ concerns over her record on immigration continue to dog the vice president’s campaign.
On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its operational statistics for the month of August, during which border patrol recorded “about 58,000″ encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border.
Encounters, according to the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], comprise any encounter between the CBP and “removable noncitizens” who are subsequently turned away by authorities, or undergo routine removal proceedings, which include seeking asylum.
How many illegal border crossings in 2024?
While the figure of 58,000 encounters was up from 56,399 in July, it represented a sharp drop of 68 percent from August 2023, the CBP said, and a fraction of the record 250,000 encounters recorded last December.
Total encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border reached 107,503 last month, down 54 percent from 232,963 the same time last year, and below December’s figure of 301,982.
The agency said that this drop puts border patrol on track to record its lowest number of annual apprehensions along the southwest border since the fiscal year ended September 2020, and “lower than the monthly average for fiscal year 2019, the last comparable full fiscal year prior to the pandemic.”
Total CBP encounters for this fiscal year ending September 30 stand at just over two million, compared to nearly 2.5 million in 2023.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris-Walz campaign for comment on the statistics.
Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. President Joe Biden attend the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum on September 11, 2024 in New York City. According to August data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, encounters on the southern border have dropped by over 50% since the administration’s June 4 executive order.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The agency credited the decrease to President Biden’s June 4 executive order, which permitted border officials to remove migrants entering the U.S. illegally without processing requests for asylum.
“Since the Presidential Proclamation and complementary Interim Final Rule (IFR) were announced on June 4, encounters between ports of entry have decreased by more than 50%,” the CBP said on Monday.
According to the White House, these actions will be in effect when the southern border is “overwhelmed,” and “will make it easier for immigration officers to remove those without a lawful basis to remain and reduce the burden on our Border Patrol agents.”
“Since the Presidential Proclamation and IFR went into effect on June 5, and through Sept. 10, DHS has removed or returned more than 131,000 individuals to more than 140 countries, including operating more than 400 international repatriation flights,” the CBP said.
It added that the total number of removals and returns over the past year exceeded “any fiscal year since 2010,” with a majority of all southwest border encounters resulting in removal, return or expulsion.
While the data points to a crackdown on illegal immigration, it also showcased high levels of lawful crossings through President Biden’s January 2023 “Humanitarian Parole” program, through which citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela can apply for a temporary stay in the U.S. lasting up to two years.
“Through the end of August 2024, nearly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans arrived lawfully on commercial flights and were granted parole under these processes,” the CBP said.
U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border on August 22, 2024 south of Sierra Vista, Arizona. Trump has criticized Kamala Harris’s record on immigration, and claimed that the U.S. would become “Venezuela on steroids” if the vice president wins the election in November.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
The data comes amid intense Republican scrutiny of the Biden-Harris administration’s record on immigration, and voters’ concerns that the vice president is ill-equipped to stem illegal border crossings if elected in November.
In 2023, 3.2 million encounters were recorded by the CBP, more than double the highest year of Donald Trump’s presidency at 1.4 million, with Republicans attributing the increase to Kamala Harris’ failures as “Border Czar.”
“Joe Biden has now endorsed and fully supports his ‘Borders Czar’ Kamala Harris to be the Democrat candidate for president,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on X following Biden’s withdrawal from the race. “I think I will need to triple the border wall, razor wire barriers and National Guard on the border.”
During the September 10 debate between the two candidates, Trump said that Harris’s policies on immigration would turn the U.S. into “Venezuela on steroids.”
According to the latest New York Times-Siena College poll of likely voters, immigration is the third most critical issue in this election behind the economy and abortion, with 12 percent of respondents listing it as the key issue deciding their vote, with a majority saying that they trust Trump over Harris on the matter.
However, Harris has attempted to ease voters concerns, and showed a willingness to enforce stricter policies at the Mexican border if elected.
During her speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, the vice president promised to revive the bipartisan border security agreement, voted down by Senate Republicans in May.
Among other things, the bill pledged to increase the number of border patrol agents along, boost the capacity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities, and free up $650 million to continue construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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