Border Crossing Numbers Change With New Counting Methods

Republicans have long believed border security — or the lack of it — would be a liability for Democrats and a winning issue for the GOP in November. But that may not be a sure thing anymore, in part because of recent data the administration says shows illegal border crossings are now lower than when President Donald Trump was still in office.

Democrats believe Republicans have some vulnerability on the border security issue, as it was Senate Republicans — urged on by former President Donald Trump — who nixed the bipartisan border security bill that Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford helped negotiate.

In a Zoom interview this week, Sen. Lankford commented on the latest border crossing data.

“We're actually trying to be able to get those numbers, as well,” Lankford (R-OK) explained, “because they have changed the way they're counting it.”

Sen. Lankford doesn't doubt that border crossings have declined but says a recent change in how U.S. Customs and Border Protection tallies migrant encounters — at and between ports of entry — may be exaggerating the decrease.

One border state Democrat disagrees.

“Border crossings on the Arizona border are down substantially,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said this week on Face the Nation.

According to USCBP, illegal crossings — between ports of entry — in President Donald Trump's last full month in office (December 2020) were just over 71,000. Under President Biden, they steadily increased, peaking this past December at almost 250,000. But with Biden's imposition of new restrictions in June, the numbers have dropped, down to 56,400 in July.

“If there is a change, why didn't they do it three years ago?” Lankford wondered. “What is the issue that they have held off not implementing for the past three years, that we reach numbers of 2.5 million people illegally crossing in a year and 10 million over three and a half years?”

Both presidential campaigns are now featuring border security in TV ads, causing Lankford to worry that the issues of immigration reform and the huge backlog of asylum claims will again get lost in partisan politics.

“That's the next big piece of this, as well,” said Lankford, “that no matter who is in the White House, we have millions of people in this backlog that have got to be able to be resolved.”