Homeland Security set a new record for chaos at the southern border in December with more than 250,000 encounters with illegal immigrants.
Border Patrol agents also detected 17 illegal immigrants whose identities were on the terrorist watch list, and Customs and Border Protection as a whole set a new record for fentanyl surging into the country.
The grim numbers were powered by large numbers of Cubans and Nicaraguans jumping the border.
But Biden administration officials also saw bright spots in the numbers, insisting that new programs put in place are shifting the patterns of illegal immigration for Venezuelans, who had surged late last year.