Report: Overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants are not vetted and still let in

Because of the high number of illegal border crossings and limited agents, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) cannot conduct comprehensive screenings on every individual.

While working undercover for non-profit organizations that were aiding individuals crossing the southern border illegally, I looked at how thoroughly "asylum seekers" were being vetted. From what I observed and after crunching the numbers, it is apparent that the system is letting the majority of people across with little to no background check.

When someone crosses the border, whether legally or illegally, and is seeking asylum, they must go through a credible fear interview to determine if they are eligible for asylum.

In May 2023, the Migration Policy Institute reported, "The number of asylum officers available to conduct credible fear interviews for those seeking asylum while in custody is also limited. DHS plans by the end of May to conduct 1,000 interviews per day using 1,100 asylum officers."

John Lafferty, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' asylum division, revealed that only 760 out of 1028 asylum officer positions were filled at a Department of Homeland Security meeting on September 19, 2023.

The month of September set a record with 218,000 border encounters, surpassing all previous numbers. That's 768 agents to process applications for any of the 218,000 people encountered who wanted to seek asylum.

Something else worth noting is that the number of asylum officers working for CBP appears to have decreased between May and September, yet on May 10, Secretary Mayorkas told the media, "We are, of the Department of Homeland Security, with one of our agencies, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is indeed surging asylum officers to Border Patrol facilities as well as to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities to conduct an unprecedented number of credible fear screenings under the asylum rule that is going to be implemented beginning upon the end of Title 42."

Mayorkas continued, "We are surging approximately 1,000 or more asylum officers for that purpose. It is very important to note that the asylum rule will take effect. If individuals do not access their lawful pathways, the pathways that we have made available to them, they will face a rebuttable presumption. But a presumption of ineligibility for asylum, they will have to meet a higher bar. This President, our President has led the expansion of lawful pathways more than anyone else in our history."

These figures appear to support what I saw when I examined the paperwork that asylum seekers handed to me at the non-profit organizations. As if things weren't bad enough, a significant number of law enforcement professionals I've spoken to think that the system needs an overhaul.

These numbers fail to account for the multitude of people who have successfully slipped past law enforcement and crossed the border illegally. That means there are millions of people in this country who have fallen through the cracks with no good way to find them.