f the Biden administration tells you illegal border crossings are down, don’t be fooled. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) fellow Todd Bensman wrote a piece for Newsweek on Jan. 24 explaining how the new CBP One program doesn’t reduce the number of illegal migrants flooding the southern U.S. border; it simply “pre-approves” those migrants so Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol can claim the numbers of illegal apprehensions and crossings are down. As Bensman said, “The illusion would impress Harry Houdini.”
December was the worst month ever in the border crisis, according to CBP statistics, but CBP seems eager to assure America on Biden’s behalf that the crisis is improving. “The American public will indeed see sharp declines in the monthly illegal apprehension statistics, starting with the January report which comes out next month,” Bensman said. But those declines are just a clever deception on the part of the Biden administration, not an increase of border security. Illegals will be entering America in numbers as large as ever. They will just be able to achieve a sort of legitimized status before entering through CBP One.
The CBP One mobile app was launched back in October 2020, but, according to Bensman, it is being used in a new way. A new plan announced Jan. 5 tells the largest migrant groups, “up to 360,000 Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans each year” (and only those groups), to apply for “humanitarian parole” from outside the United States on CBP One. The United Nations (UN), Mexico, and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help the illegal migrants find a U.S. sponsor, create a “plausible” sob story, and collect application documents while they wait. And just like that, there are “big reductions” in those illegal border crossing numbers, while the crossings continue as constant as ever. Bensman wrote:
