America’s least convincing propagandist Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that despite illegal immigration reaching record high after record high on Joe Biden’s watch, illegal immigration is actually down!
“The Department of Homeland Security will have more to share soon, as you know the DHS shared their plan back in January, and as we’ve seen in the data, unlawful immigration is down. So what they have put forth in their protocols and processes is working,” KJP told a reporter.
Watch below:
Encounters with illegals at the border have surged under Biden. The full number of border encounters during the last full fiscal year of the Trump presidency was 457,088 - and under Biden, encounters topped 2 million in a single fiscal year for the first time ever.
While it is impossible to know for sure the exact number who successfully enter the U.S. illegally, apprehensions and arrests are often used as a proxy for successful border crossings. One study published in 2013 by the Council of Foreign Relations estimated the relationship to be roughly one successful crossing for one apprehension, which would imply over 2 million illegals successfully crossed the border in FY 2022.
There is of course a possibility that KJP means illegal immigration is down from some prior high on their watch. The Biden administration often spins high gas prices this way, whereas if a gallon of gas increases from $2 to $4 on their watch and then falls to $3.50 they’ll take credit for a $0.50 drop.
That seems likely because CBP data shows a drop in encounters from December-March of this year, but the total encounters are still nearly four times higher than during the same time period in 2020 - and higher than the same time period in 2021. Encounters are only marginally below what they were over the same time period last year.
In the Biden administration, things being only-slightly-less-bad than the worst they've ever been is considered a win.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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