According to the Washington Examiner, Jeh Johnson – the former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary of the Obama administration – recently admitted that the southern border crisis is worse under President Joe Biden than it was during the presidency of Barrack Obama. 

Johnson said as much during a recent appearance on David Lat’s Original Jurisdiction podcast.

“Well, the job, first of all, is different than it was when I was in office seven, eight years ago,” Johnson said. “The current secretary was my deputy secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. The job is different.”

“The immigration problem is much bigger than it was,” Johnson added.

It’s true

Johnson is certainly not wrong here. The southern border crisis has been worse under President Biden. Under Biden, in fact, America has been having some historically bad years in terms of illegal immigration.

Previous reporting has indicated that the 2022 fiscal year – which runs from October to September – was a particularly bad year. Fox News reported: “There were more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in FY 2022 alone, topping the then-historic 1.7 million encountered in FY 2021.”

The year saw numerous months with more than 200,000 illegal alien encounters at the southern border. May 2022 was one of the worst on record with 241,136 encounters.

This all followed President Biden’s actions upon entering the White House when he immediately reversed the immigration policies of former President Donald Trump.

Southern border illegal immigration hasn’t slowed down since. In fact, it even appears to be speeding up.

The latest illegal immigration figures

Recently, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its latest southern border figures. And, what these figures show is that Fiscal Year 2023 is on pace to top 2022.

Thus far, in the first three months of the fiscal year, the CPB has witnessed 717,660 illegal alien encounters. This includes a record 251,487 encounters in December.

The Daily Wire reports:

Last month’s numbers, combined with the first two months of fiscal year 2023 — October and November — put the U.S. on track to have more than 2.87 million illegal alien encounters on the U.S. southern border this year.

The Biden administration, nevertheless, claims that this situation will now be turning around after the implementation of new measures designed to curb the southern border illegal immigration numbers. The Examiner separately reports that the DHS believes illegal immigration “is on track to drop 97% this month compared to December.”

It is one of those things that is going to have to be seen to be believed.