A few days ago, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, speaking to the global elites at some summit in Aspen, surreally declared that the U.S. border "is secure."

It was garbage, much as everything else he says, given that more than 3 million illegal aliens with zero vetting have crossed into the U.S. on Joe Biden's watch, just as Rep. Andy Biggs pointed out in his excellent op-ed for Townhall here.

Millions of illegal border-crossers, with a record 270,000 apprehended in just the last month, is nothing to brag about, yet that was exactly what Mayorkas was doing, according to former ICE acting director Tom Homan.

Fox News Digital asked Border Patrol agents on the ground what they thought of the Mayorkas declaration — and got this:

"Hundreds of thousands crossing every month is not the definition of secure," one agent said. "They are liars and anyone who believes them are fools."

But perhaps even worse is that some 500,000 got in without any apprehension.  The figures are now out on the "gotaways," who are the illegal border-crossers who don't turn themselves into the Border Patrol for the "processing" and freebies that follow.

According to the New York Post:

More than 500,000 known "gotaway" immigrants [sic] have crossed the border into the US but evaded capture since the start of FY 2022, according to a new report.

Multiple senior Department of Homeland Security sources confirmed the number to Fox News on Monday, revealing that there has been an average of more than 55,000 known "gotaways" per month.

"Gotaways" is a commonly used term for illegal immigrants [sic] who have been spotted crossing the border by agents or on camera but were not caught or processed by officials. 

With less than three months left in the fiscal year, 2022 has already seen a massive increase in the "gotaway" from the previous year after DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified in April that there had been more than 389,000 immigrants [sic] who evaded arrest in FY 2021. 

Five hundred thousand people entering in this country with no record of their presence whatsoever is clearly a border out of control, an insecure border, and a very dangerous state of affairs.  The Post notes that when combined with the figures from last year, also during Mayorkas's and Biden's regimen, the figure comes to 900,000.

Nine hundred thousand is equivalent of two Minneapolises, or a Portland and a New Orleans. 

Two hundred seventy thousand, which is the number that rolled in last month, is a city the same size as Orlando.

Three million, which is the total, is a Chicago, or two Philadelphias.

The figures are phenomenal. 

And for obvious reasons, they are very disturbing.

After all, illegal migrants have been incentivized by the Biden administration to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol in order to make fake claims of "asylum."  It's a can't lose for them — starting with the ongoing catch-and-release policy, even for illegal migrants coughing with COVID and refusing the COVID vaccine.  After that, they get automatic authorization to work in the U.S. for the duration of their asylum claims wending through the system, at a pace of years, and once ordered deported, they won't be deported, owing to having been here for too long and not being "a priority" for enforcement. 

The Washington Examiner has a leaked video about what really goes on at the border:

NEW: Federal law enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border shared an inside look at the immigration crisis unfolding under President Joe Biden in an effort to shine a light on the revolving door of migrant apprehensions and releases that has no end in sight.https://t.co/Icpr74Sm9i pic.twitter.com/ep72G2tt4u

— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) July 25, 2022

That's just the skeleton stuff.  For many illegal border-crossers, the fat is even better, with free housing, free stipends as "refugees," free health care, free education, free defense attorneys, fee-free asylum applications, free food, free transit without the burden of IDs, and a raft of other goodies.

Now consider that having been offered that, plus no practical worries about deportation — and think about the disturbing fact that 500,000 illegal border-crossers have chosen to turn that down, in favor of simply getting into the country for whatever purpose.  Who does that?

Obviously, it's people who might be deported because of criminal histories, or people who are actively engaged in committing criminal acts, such as the transport of illegal and lethal drugs from China such as fentanyl.  President Trump in his rally to supporters in Arizona over the weekend noted that many countries are now emptying their jails and directing their criminals to head to the States.  There are gang members, murderers, rapists, child-molesters, thieves, and every variety of human plague coming to where their best opportunities are in the States.  I spoke with radio host Jeff Biggs yesterday at Houston's top drive-time radio station, KTRH, and I recall that he noted that 1,300 criminals were identified in recent sweeps in the battered Rio Grande Valley alone, a figure I found shocking.  Thirteen hundred is a very large room full of criminals. 

Many, of course, are from Latin America and other high-crime places, so effectively, we are importing Latin America's pervasive crime problem, where women dare not wear jewels in public, housing communities have tall walls and security guards, fancy watches are a no-no, kidnappings from cars after nails are thrown into the road to disable them are common, purses are placed in trunks before driving in cabs to prevent smash-and-grab theft, ATMs on the street are major risks for criminal card readers, and bulletproof cars are a way of life, to name just a few random adjustments to be made for living in Latin America.  You can find all of that in places like Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador — where many of these illegal migrants are coming from.  I know about these things, having experienced them firsthand in the region.   

But worse still, as Biggs notes, some actual terrorists have been found among the apprehended.

The number of individuals encountered on the terrorist watchlist set in Fiscal Year 2021 has already been shattered by multiples in Fiscal Year 2022.

How likely are such people to have been among the gotaways?  

When you have an open border, not everyone decides to come for the government benefits.  Some people find it even more lucrative to prey on others completely off the government's radar.  With an open border, all kinds can come.  It's not just future Democrat voters coming to assimilate into the underclass.  With "gotaway" figures like these, it's pretty clear that criminals are taking, for them, the Biden opportunity of a lifetime.  Who pays?  We pay.  And who lies about it, telling us that this is "secure"?  Alejandro Mayorkas.

Image: Screen shot from Fox News video via YouTube.