; the Biden administration is responsible for the 6th highest and 8 of the 10 highest months ever recorded. (3) While January 2023 encounters fell below 200,000, that number reached 156,274, a record high for the month of January. (4) February 2023 saw 154,998 encounters at the Southwest border, the 24th consecutive month that encounters exceeded 150,000. Nearly half of the February total stemmed from expulsions under title 42. (5) In fiscal year 2022, CBP encountered nearly 2,380,000 illegal aliens at the Southwest border (excluding a reported 600,000 known gotaways ) and more than 2,700,000 nationwide. CBP data indicates that from February 1, 2021, through February 28, 2023, nearly 4.85 million illegal aliens have been encountered at the United States Southwest border. (6) In the first 5 months of fiscal year 2023, CBP has encountered 1,029,953 illegal aliens at the Southwest border, putting the Department of Homeland Security on pace to encounter nearly 2,500,000 illegal aliens this fiscal year. (7) According to congressional testimony provided by U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz on March 15, 2023, the number of known gotaways since January 20, 2021, has exceeded 1,300,000, bringing the total number of aliens attempting to cross the Southwest border well in excess of 6,000,000. (8) Six million is a greater population than the populations of 31 of the 50 States. It is more than the populations of North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, Delaware, and the District of Columbia combined. (9) The ongoing border crisis has inflicted harrowing costs on the welfare of women and children. The number of unaccompanied alien children encountered by CBP at the Southwest border in fiscal year 2017 was 48,681. In fiscal year 2022, that number stood at 152,057, a 212 percent increase. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children have been encountered , trafficked, and smuggled across the Southwest border in the 2 years since President Biden took office, representing hundreds of children every day. (10)