Figure emerges after sources report record number of migrant encounters in December 2023
Congress' border deal at risk of collapse
Fox News' Chad Pergram on Congress struggling to come up with a deal for border legislation and claims that the president doesn't want a deal to happen.
Sources at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Fox News on Wednesday that there have been more than 96,000 "known gotaways" at the southern border since the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.
Agents reported seeing or detecting the migrants but were not able to take them into custody.
The figure indicates that more than 800 individuals per day illegally crossed the border and then disappeared into the U.S.
The numbers come after CBP sources told Fox News Digital at the start of January that migrant encounters hit a staggering 300,000 incidents in the last month of 2023.
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Migrants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, try to reach the United States border to seek humanitarian asylum on Jan. 17. (Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Between Dec. 1 and 31, more than 302,000 migrants were documented attempting to cross the U.S. southern border.
It is the highest total for a single month ever recorded. It is also the first time migrant encounters have exceeded 300,000.
More than 785,000 migrant encounters have been reported since the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 – the highest first quarter total ever recorded.
MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS AT SOUTHERN BORDER HIT RECORD IN DECEMBER, SOURCES SAY
Migrants cross the Rio Grande as golfers play on the other side of the shipping container fence in Eagle Pass, Texas, as seen from Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Jan. 18. (Reuters/Go Nakamura)
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, is also warning fellow Democrats, including President Biden, to prepare for border security to be a top election issue in the 2024 cycle.
Standing along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo, Texas, on Saturday, Cuellar told Fox News Digital the situation at the southern border will "absolutely" be on voters’ minds this year.
He traveled to the border this weekend as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation that also included Reps. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, Randy Weber, R-Texas, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
"If they're looking at the same polls I've been looking at, the American public doesn't like what's happening," Cuellar said of fellow Democrats.
Migrants walk along the U.S.-Mexico border fence toward U.S. Border Patrol vehicles on Jan. 3, 2024, in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
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Speaking of Biden, he said, "It’s in the president’s best interest politically to come up with a solution on border security."
Fox News' Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.
