Since we will be dealing with the disastrous consequences of the Biden-Harris administration’s open border for years — if not decades — to come, it is important to understand that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris wanted an open border. They caused this clear and present danger. 

But even before Biden chose to dismantle all the successful actions President Donald Trump took to secure the border, it should be recognized that President Barack Obama’s lawless abuse of prosecutorial discretion in his Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was the catalyst that sparked all subsequent border crises. 

Prior to DACA, the number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador that CBP encountered averaged below 4,000 per year. 

Obama announced DACA in June 2012, causing the numbers of UACs from the Northern Triangle countries to more than double to 10,100 in 2012, and further increase to 20,800 in 2013 and 51,700 in 2014. During that time, the reality that it was becoming easier to get in and stay in America rapidly spread throughout Central America, even though fewer than 10 percent of those migrating had valid asylum claims. 

In order to qualify for asylum, a person must be unable or unwilling to return to their country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Unfortunately, the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act unintentionally weakened the screening standard for asylum seekers by only requiring migrants to state they had a “credible fear” of returning to their home country. 

With the implementation of DACA, exploitation of the credible fear standard exploded. In addition to UACs, families began flooding the Southwest border with 67,000 individuals entering in family units apprehended in 2014. In June 2014, President Obama declared migrant apprehension levels of 2,000 per day a “humanitarian crisis,” and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began detaining family units. Detaining family units worked, causing apprehensions to drop to 39,800 in 2015. 

Immigration activist groups challenged Obama’s family detention policy in court, and the judge issued a ruling that reinterpreted the Flores Settlement Agreement — a 1997 court settlement limiting custody of UACs to only 20 days — to apply to accompanied children as well. The Obama administration disagreed with the ruling but complied by deciding to release entire family units. The impact was immediate, with 77,700 individuals in family units apprehended in 2016. 

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump made securing our borders his top issue. After Trump’s election, migrants took him seriously, and apprehensions declined significantly, particularly among UACs. But without congressional action strengthening the credible fear standard and reversing the Flores reinterpretation, the flow of migrants began increasing again, reaching 144,000 (4,645 per day) in May 2019. 

Before reaching that peak, President Trump began taking action. In a 2018 opinion, the Supreme Court stated current immigration law “exudes deference” to the President. President Trump used that executive authority to implement the Migrant Protection Protocols (Remain in Mexico) and Safe Third Country Agreements with Central American countries. He also threatened significant tariffs against Mexico to obtain its cooperation. 

These executive actions worked. Twelve months later, in April 2020, encounters at the Southwest border dropped to only 17,000 (567 per day). Unfortunately, in early 2020, Democrat presidential candidates promised to end deportations and provide free health care to illegal immigrations, so the number of encounters with single adults increased steadily during the remainder of 2020 to 74,000 (2,387 per day) in December. 

Fortunately, President Trump already began returning illegal migrants under Title 42 in March of 2020, so even though CBP encountered 74,000 in December 2020, only 580 (19 per day) were actually released into the country. In comparison, the daily average number of illegal immigrants encountered at the Southwest border and either released or evaded apprehension during the entire Biden administration exceeds 5,500 per day. Let that sink in. Trump left office allowing entry to only 19 migrants per day, while President Biden allowed more than 5,500 per day. 

Because DHS has been far less than fully transparent, it is difficult to get an exact handle on how many migrants got into America during the Biden administration. Based on information we can obtain, my best estimate is approximately 8 million by the time Biden leaves office. To put that number in perspective, it is higher than the populations of 38 of the 50 states. That is the magnitude of what Biden and Harris did. 

Along the way, Biden and Harris completely abused the parole process — intended to be granted on a case-by-case basis for medical treatments or attending funerals, etc. — and used it to parole hundreds of thousands of migrants without valid asylum claims into the U.S. They used the CBP One App, originally designed to help facilitate shipping of products into the 

U.S., to parole 813,000 migrants into America, making them eligible for immigration benefits and work permits. They created the CHNV program to fly in 540,000 migrants (30,000 per month) from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, granting them the same parole status and benefits. 

The Biden-Harris administration’s open border policy facilitated the multi-billion-dollar business model of some of the most evil people on the planet: terrorists; transnational criminals; human, sex, and drug traffickers; gang and cartel members. The rapes, murders, vehicular homicides, and the example of Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes are merely the tip of the iceberg of the violent crimes we will be experiencing and dealing with for years, if not decades, into the future.

The choice is as stark as they come. We can give the same people who willfully created this mess another four years to double down on their lawlessness, or we can elect a president who has a clear track record of prioritizing border security.

Ron Johnson represents Wisconsin in the United States Senate.