Biden may have to lift asylum crackdown on border after DHS report says crossings have plummeted

The Department of Homeland Security says that border crossings have plummeted so much that the Biden administration may have to lift a crackdown order.

President Joe Biden ordered that asylum applications would be shut off unless the applicant arrived through an official port of entry, but that order would end if immigrant apprehensions dropped below 1,500 on a daily basis.

Monthly illegal crossings soared to a historical high of nearly a quarter of a million in December 2023.

"The Departments have determined that the 1,500-encounter threshold is a reasonable proxy for when the border security and immigration system is no longer over capacity and the measures adopted in this rule are not necessary to deal with such circumstances," the regulation reads.

According to a CBS News review of internal DHS figures, the seven-day average of immigrant apprehensions between ports of entry has dropped to 1,650 and is likely to meet the cut-off point soon.

If Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas finds that the threshold has been reached, the crackdown order will end 14 days later.

However, one senior official from U.S. Customs and Border Protection told CBS that the agency didn't expect to reach the threshold.

"We're not in a place yet where we're a day ... or days away from being below 1,500," the official reportedly said.

Monthly illegal crossings soared to a historical high of nearly a quarter of a million in December 2023, but the latest figures from DHS say immigrant apprehensions are headed to registering about 60,000 this month.

Republicans have been beating up the Biden administration with story after story of illegal aliens committing heinous crimes in the country in order to criticize their lax border policies. Polls show that most Americans blame Democrats for the immigration crisis.

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