Biden Denies Border Crisis as Illegal Crossings Rise

(DailyVantage.com) – Despite the continued rise in border crossings and encounters in the last several months, the Biden administration is still seemingly turning a blind eye to the situation, with President Joe Biden recently saying that he does not believe that there is a crisis at the U.S. – Mexico border.

The president made the statement in response to a question from Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson asking whether Biden considered the current situation in the southern border as a “crisis”. After responding with a straightforward “No,” the president then laid the blame on Republicans, saying that he has been pushing the GOP “since they got in office”.

Data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show that for fiscal year 2023 (from October 2022 to September 2023), the agency recorded close to 2.5 million encounters at the U.S.’ southwest border. The number was slightly above the almost 2.4 million encounters recorded for the previous year, and a significant jump from the roughly 1.7 million encounters recorded for 2021. On top of all of these, for the last three months of calendar year 2023 – October, November and December – encounters at the southwest border have already reached more than 785,000 incidents, according to CBP data.

The president’s statements had no small number of Republicans bristling at the accusation that the GOP has been impeding the White House’s efforts to secure the border. Republican Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson called Biden’s statement “delusional”, and accused the president of being the “architect” of the border crisis.

In addition, Republican Texas Representative Troy Nehls, who is also a member of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, claimed that 6.7 million illegal migrants have crossed into the U.S. since the beginning of Biden’s term, and laid the problems with teeming masses of migrants on the southwest border at the feet of the president and the Democratic party.

The Senate Republican Conference has also released a statement on the migrant crisis at the border, accusing the president of “undermining” the border security and integrity of the U.S.’ immigration system.