The Presidential Proclamation issued by President Biden to temporarily suspend the entry of certain noncitizens across the southern border – including the southwest land and southern coastal borders – and the complementary joint interim final rule (IFR) issued by DHS and DOJ have now been in effect for seven weeks, helping reduce the number of encounters at our Southwest Border by 55%. The Border Patrol’s 7-day average has decreased to below 1,800 encounters per day. In June, the Border Patrol recorded 83,536 encounters between ports of entry, the lowest number since January 2021, and below the number of encounters between ports of entry in June 2019, the last comparable year prior to the pandemic.
While the President’s action has led to significant results, our nation’s immigration system requires Congressional action to provide needed resources and additional authorities. Twice now, Congress has failed to pass the bipartisan border security agreement negotiated in the U.S. Senate, which would provide the critical personnel and funding needed to further secure our Southern border. The agreement would have added 1,500 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Agents and Officers, added 1,200 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel, 4,300 asylum officers, invested in technology to catch illegal fentanyl, and delivered sweeping reforms to the asylum system. Congress must still act.
While the Proclamation and IFR have been in effect:
- DHS has removed and returned more than 65,000 individuals to more than 125 countries, including by operating more than 200 international repatriation flights.
- DHS has doubled the percentage of noncitizens processed through Expedited Removal while in CBP or ICE custody. Expedited Removal processing was already at record levels prior to the Proclamation.
- DHS has decreased the number of people released pending their removal proceedings by 70%.
- We continue to implement recently announced measures to increase the overall capacity of enforcement resources — including repatriation flights and detention capacity. ICE is optimizing air charter contracts to maximize the number of repatriation flights operated each week.
- Over the last year, the agency has removed individuals to a range of South American and Eastern Hemisphere countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Egypt, Mauritania, Senegal, Uzbekistan, and India, and in the last few weeks, DHS conducted a removal flight to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Efforts to expand the number of removal flights continue with the expectation of additional flights added to the schedule in the coming weeks.
Under the terms of the IFR, the limitation on asylum eligibility will be discontinued when encounters fall below certain levels but will come back into effect if encounters rise again. The Proclamation and IFR enable DHS to quickly remove those without a legal basis to remain, strengthening enforcement consequences for those who fail to use lawful pathways to come to the United States. For more information on how the Proclamation and IFR work, visit the following links:
- Fact Sheet: President Biden’s Presidential Proclamation and Joint DHS-DOJ Interim Final Rule Cut Encounters at Southwest Border by Over 40 Percent in First Three Weeks
- Fact Sheet: Presidential Proclamation to Suspend and Limit Entry and Joint DHS-DOJ Interim Final Rule to Restrict Asylum During High Encounters at the Southern Border
Individuals continue to be eligible for asylum, including individuals who use the CBP One™ mobile app’s appointment scheduling function. CBP makes 1,450 appointments available per day at eight land ports of entry via this functionality. Use of the app requires those seeking an appointment to submit vital information in advance, improving DHS’s ability to conduct screening and vetting. CBP One is just one example of how this Administration has carried out the largest expansion of lawful pathways and orderly processes in decades.
The majority of all Southwest border encounters during the past three fiscal years resulted in a removal, return, or expulsion. DHS removed or returned over 740,000 individuals in the 12 months after the end of the Title 42 public health Order, more than any year since 2010. That included more removals to countries other than Mexico than in any prior year ever.
For additional information on the actions taken over the past three years to strengthen border security, see our fact sheet at the link below: