Illegal border crossings surpass 12.5 million since Biden-Harris took office, most in US history

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released monthly border apprehension data on Friday, saying, “statistics show lowest southwest border encounters in nearly four years.” CBP also claimed illegal border crossings were down by 34% from June to July and the drop is due to a presidential proclamation issued in June.
Troy Miller, a senior official performing the duties of the CBP Commissioner, said recent Biden-Harris policies led “to the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in more than three years.”
Despite these claims, the total number of apprehended illegal border crossers surpassed 10.5 million in July with two months left in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
That number excludes 2 million gotaways, those who illegally entered and evaded capture, bringing the total number to more than 12.5 million.
That is greater than the individual populations of 45 states. If illegal border crossers were a state, they’d be the sixth most populous state ahead of Illinois.
That’s up from illegal border crossers totaling more than the individual populations of 43 states in March, up from 23 states in June 2022, when The Center Square first began making the comparison to state, county and country populations.
No other presidential administration in U.S. history has ever reported even a fraction of 12.5 million in one term let alone multiple terms combined.