Border Numbers for December Break Monthly Record, as Biden Admin Talks Amnesty With Mexico

Migrant numbers at the southern border in December have broken the record for monthly encounters, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources tell Fox News — just as U.S. and Mexico officials met this week and discussed the benefits of “regularizing” those in the country illegally.

Sources say there have been more than 276,000 migrant encounters in December so far, already making it the highest month on record.

The previous record was set in September when officials saw 269,735 encounters. The number includes illegal immigrants encountered between ports of entry and migrants entering at ports of entry via the CBP One app.

It means that since the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1., there have been more than 760,000 migrant encounters at the southern border, making the first quarter of FY 24 the highest quarter on record. Meanwhile, there have been 82,000 known getaways since Oct. 1. There were over 9,400 encounters in the last 24 hours, with over 8,000 resulting in a release with a Notice to Appear.

It caps a year at the southern border where multiple records have been repeatedly smashed, and where Border Patrol have consistently been overwhelmed by the numbers they are seeing.

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This week Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas were part of a U.S. delegation to Mexico City where they met with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

In the joint statement, the countries affirmed their commitments to “orderly, humane and regular migration” and stressed their efforts to tackle “root causes” of migration, disrupt human smuggling and promote private investment while also investing in “ambitious development programs” in the region.

But the statement also said that officials discussed the “benefits” of granting some form of legal status for illegal immigrants already in the U.S., including those protected by the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — an executive order signed by President Barack Obama, which shielded some illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors.

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