I stand by my numbers. Bolded above is my OP, bolded below is the AP confirming my numbers....

It's not the numbers. It's the notion of "locking-in 5000 per day". That's not what it would have done. It would have allowed the government to shut down the border if we reached that level of crossings. A power it did not, and still does not -thanks to the Felon-, have.

The Felon had no success, no brilliance. I will agree that he -at least partially- "listened" to main street, though the RW-propaganda machine has been whipping people into a frenzy on this issue for the past decade. However, the numbers were already coming down. It took me a few seconds to determine that "encounters" were down 75% in Sept 2024 vs Sept 2023. The Felon had nothing to do with that.

As a side note, I read a notice from Border Patrol dated this month. The contamination has already started. It referred to "catch and release", which is not really a thing. That's the phrasing used by Gateway Pundit or OANN to mischaracterize the handling of asylum seekers. Partisanism has creeped into the data being reported, and that's a sad thing. Tainted data is useless data. This is what I meant by professional civil service doing its job without regard to whom is in office/control. Destroy that, and we can trust nothing coming out of government ever. Reports like that should be neutral, just reporting facts without any inflammatory language.