More than 500,000 known “gotaway” immigrants 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 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 who evaded arrest in FY 2021.
Looking at the two years combined, the department has tracked approximately 900,000 known “gotaways,” according to the report.
It is unclear how many of this year’s fiscal year total crossed into the US via the southern border.
DHS did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
As tens of thousands continue to evade Border Patrol officials monthly, the southern border has been reporting record highs of border encounters and apprehensions – with June marking the fourth month in a row to hit more than 200,000 stops.
While last month was a 14% decrease from May’s jaw-dropping high of 239,416, June’s numbers brought the total number of encounters in FY 2022 to 1,746,119 — the most the agency has recorded for any fiscal year since 1960.
It is unclear if June’s decrease in overall encounters will set a pattern for the remainder of the summer as droves of migrants have continued to take the dangerous journey to cross the border.
Just last week, a large family of migrants from Nicaragua was rescued by a Texas Department of Public Safety agent after they were caught in a current while attempting to cross the Rio Grande.
Earlier this month, a group made up of hundreds of migrants was seen crossing the river into Texas, after reportedly being escorted by human-smugglers known as “coyotes.”
Meanwhile, Mayorkas has insisted the border is “secure” – much to the ire of Border Patrol officials on the ground.
“Hundreds of thousands crossing every month is not the definition of secure,” one agent told Fox News Digital last week. “They are liars and anyone who believes them are fools.”
The Biden administration has also been heavily blasted by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the ongoing border crisis – particularly as the administration has moved to reverse several restrictive immigration policies put in place by former President Donald Trump.
