The Biden administration has seen nearly 2 million southwest land border encounters, setting a record for the full fiscal year of 2021 (1,734,686).
The data comes from the July report of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol released Monday night.
July saw nearly 200,000 southwest land border encounters, but it also was also the first time since President Joe Biden took office that border apprehensions actually declined year-over-year.
While July was the second consecutive month migrant encounters declined, it finally ended a streak of 21 consecutive months of the Biden administration seeing a year-over-year increase of border encounters.
Border Patrol agents alone apprehended 181,552 migrants at the southwest border in July, according to the data.
This May set a record with 224,397 Border Patrol migrant encounters, which is almost half of the 458,088 total migrant encounters for all of fiscal year 2020 – the last year of former President Donald Trump's time in office.
Trump had put a number of border-security measures in place, including "Remain in Mexico" and Title 42 expulsions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden's administration has worked to undo many of the Trump's protections, leading to an increase in migration.
While this July seems like progress for the border, the 199,976 border encounters last month amount to five times the encounters of July 2020 (40,929) when Trump was in office.
Notably, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended – a frequent Democrat attack on the Trump administration – has soared under Biden. After 33,239 unaccompanied minors encountered at the border in Trump's final year of 2020, there have been 146,925 unaccompanied minors in fiscal year 2021 and already 128,845 in 2022 under Biden.
There remain two more months to report in fiscal year 2022, which ends after August and September, as the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
By sector, Del Rio rose to the most exposed portion of the southwest border, according to the data with nearly 50,000 apprehensions. The Rio Grande Valley dropped to second with more than 35,000 apprehensions, while the El Paso Sector (24,916) and Yuma Sector (24,424) have been more secure, according to the report.
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