1.9 million illegal immigrants apprehended at US-Mexico border in 2021, at a cost of $10 billion

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a new report on Wednesday that showed that roughly 1.9 million illegal immigrants who entered the United States throughout the first year of the Biden presidency were apprehended.

"Based on FAIR's most recent comprehensive fiscal cost study, illegal aliens are likely imposing a net fiscal burden of at least $143.1 billion," FAIR writes in the report. "That's an increase of approximately $9.4 billion over the past year."

The number of illegal immigrants living in the US increased from 14.5 million at the end of 2020 to 15.5 million at the end of 2021.

While US Customs and Border Protection's charts deal with "border encounters," the government resource backs up the point that FAIR conveys when stating that illegal border crossings "exponentially" skyrocketed at the onset of the Biden administration.

The conclusions made by FAIR are that illegal migrants are costing American taxpayers $143.1 billion overall, with nearly $10 billion in costs coming from the influx of illegals into the US over the last year.

The leading states by population of illegal migrants are: California in first place with 3.266 million, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey.

As for the economic relationship between US businesses and illegal migrants: people come to Mexico looking for work at a time when American establishments are willing to use "cheap labor" to make ends meet amid an era of inflation and increasing costs of living.

The FAIR report described how President Joe Biden and his administration have promised amnesty for illegal migrants in the United States and even tried to get Congress to pass legislation on the issue in 2021.

FAIR’s claims about the influence Biden has had on encouraging illegal migrants and human smugglers trafficking people into the United States, had previously been confirmed by reporters on the ground.

FAIR also mentioned that President Biden halting construction on the US-Mexico border wall project started by the Trump administration encouraged illegal immigration.

Migrants from Nicaragua have been filmed walking through gaps in the border wall.

Earlier this month, one migrant woman died after trying to scale the border wall in an accident involving her climbing gear.

This week, the White House blamed the state of Texas for the death of a National Guardsman who drowned in the Rio Grande trying to rescue two migrants, who may have been drug smugglers. This comes as Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has restarted work on building the border wall in the state and redoubled his efforts to stop illegal migration in his state.

New rules instituted by the Biden administration further limited the capabilities of ICE officials when it comes to detaining and removing migrants who break the law. This being on top of the reinstitution of the Obama-era "catch and release" policy as well as the scaling back of migrant protection protocols.

On Wednesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden administration's handling of immigration when speaking to the House Appropriations committee.

"We expect migration levels to increase as smugglers seek to take advantage of and profit from vulnerable migrants. We will continue to enforce our immigration laws," he told lawmakers when arguing for the 2023 budget.

The messaging conflicts with statements Mayorkas made in private.

Earlier this week, the Missouri Attorney General obtained a restraining order against the Biden administration, effectively blocking them from lifting Title 42, the March 2020 public health order that allowed for the expedient removal of illegals in the United States.

While previous the CDC position was that the COVID pandemic has since subsided and Title 42 was therefore no longer needed, the announcement had been met with public outcry from state officials who expressed concerns about removing this illegal migrant removal measure from their toolkit, given the probability of a large influx of migrants if the measure is lifted.