In a recent post, I discussed statements New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made on CBS News concerning the crisis that has swept 43,000 migrants from the Southwest border into his city. As I noted, Adams claimed that NYC would need $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year to handle the flow — a rate of $65,116.27 per migrant. Given that 3.1 million migrants have entered the United States illegally and either evaded apprehension or been caught and released by DHS since Biden took office, that totals out to more than $195 billion in new annual municipal costs — a figure that rises by at least $159 million per day. Caring for migrants plainly ain’t cheap, and detention would be cheaper.
Illegal Entries Under Biden. Since February 2021 (the month after Joe Biden became president) through the end of November 2022, Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border have apprehended more than 4.2 million illegal migrants.
Of those 4.2 million-plus migrants, about 2.039 million were expelled under CDC orders issued pursuant to Title 42 of the U.S. Code in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. That leaves just short of 2.176 million illegal migrants who were processed under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), instead.
Approximately 1.8 million of those migrants processed under the INA were released into the United States. In addition, about 389,000 other illegal migrants (known colloquially as “got-aways”) evaded agents and also entered the country successfully in FY 2021, as did some 599,000 more in FY 2022, and, according to Fox News on January 28, nearly 294,000 others in the first 120 days of FY 2023.
