Fact Check: Biden Claims ‘Unlawful Migration’ Dropped by 97 Percent

CLAIM:  President Joe Biden claimed to have cut “unlawful” migration by 97 percent.

VERDICT: Mostly False

Joe Biden used his State of the Union speech to claim he has gotten the U.S. border back under control, saying, “Since we launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97 percent.”

Biden’s narrow focus on just four countries in one month obscures his larger record of encouraging massive illegal migration through a variety of quasi-legal loopholes and programs.

The claimed reduction for the four countries ignores the many other national populations that Biden is allowing easy access into the United States, where they are given “parole” or unfettered access to U.S. jobs while they maintain years-long requests for asylum.

The claim also ignores Biden’s creation of a hidden “parole pathway” that is importing at least 50,000 economic migrants per month into the jobs needed by Americans who have seen their wages and opportunities decline for many years. That pipeline includes 30,000 people from the four countries.

That massive pipeline alone — without any of the waived-through illegals — can boost the delivery of job-seeking migrants into the United States by at least 60 percent above the roughly one million set by Congress in 1990.

Overall, Biden’s doorways are adding almost one migrant for every American who turns 18 each year, or almost three times the level set by Congress’s laws in 1990.

That Biden-engineered inflation of the labor supply will help investors and Wall Street by cutting market wages for Americans and by driving up the market price of the housing needed by young Americans and American families.

The Los Angeles Times described on February 5 how one Cuban was whisked through the new parole pipeline into the U.S. job market:

HAVANA —  In barely a week, 25-year-old engineer Marcos Marzo went from riding his small electric motorcycle past the low buildings of Havana’s Vedado district to traveling the mega-highways of Florida, amazed by the towering high-rises and giant supermarkets.

A close relative told Marzo on Jan. 21 that he had applied online to sponsor the young engineer’s trip to Florida as required by the new parole program for Cuban migrants set up by the Biden administration. The next day the sponsorship had been confirmed and the day after that it was approved.

With his printed authorization in hand and a small blue suitcase, Marzo climbed aboard a plane to Hialeah, Fla., last Friday, shaken by the speed of it all.

Meanwhile, 20 Republican state officials are arguing in court that Biden’s parole pipeline is illegal.

The reality of migration-imposed wage cuts on Americans is fully recognized by investors and deeply unpopular among voters. For example, by 50 percent to 22 percent of Americans agree companies “should raise wages and try harder to recruit Americans even if it causes the prices of their products to rise,” according to a July 2022 poll by YouGov.com.