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Chaos at our southern border continuing into the New Year. Customs and border protection sources revealing to Fox News a staggering new record number of migrants entering our country in just the month of December. And at the same time, a massive migrant caravan is marching its way through Mexico. Welcome back, everyone, to a special edition of Fox News Live. I'm Anita Vogel in Los Angeles. And Rich, great to be with you and happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Great to be with you, Anita. I'm Rich Edson in New York. Border officials say they encountered a new record of 302,000 migrants in December, and more than double that since October first. The unprecedented figures have some Democratic lawmakers pushing President Biden to address this crisis.

The pull factor right now is that as long as people are coming to the border and they feel that they're hitting speed bump and they're being released and waiting for five, six years for adjudication, then they're going to keep coming. It's the pool factor. If we don't address that by addressing detention, giving them the quick hearing and then reporting, most of them are going to be deported because asylum cases, if you look at the last 25 years, 87% are going to be rejected. So why are we allowing 100% when we ought to be looking at smaller points?

Let's get more with this. For former ICE director and former federal prosecutor, Jonathan Fahey, Jonathan, if you look at what's going on here and what Congress is negotiating here, what happens from here? Do you think there's much that Congress can do to address this?

No, I really don't because really the core problem, as I see it, is the administration's lack of will or lack of desire whatsoever to enforce the existing law. Congressman Qualey is right. They are encouraging people to come here with the poll factor. Where I think he's mistaken is, even when they do get these asylum hearings six, seven, eight, nine years down the road, if we have an administration similar to this administration, they're not going to be deported. This administration's stated policy is they only deport the most serious criminals that have to be convicted. People that are not getting asylum or not showing up for hearings or otherwise are not even being deported. I think there's over a million people that have orders of deportation, and this administration is doing nothing to deport them. So people know once they get here, assuming political winds do not change in this country, they are staying here and they, in effect, are treated as good or better than citizens in many cases.

Jonathan, this is so rare, especially when you look at the month of December. Typically, it's not as busy at the southern border in this month. Now we've hit a record of all months of any year, at least from what we've recorded in history. So what does 2024 look like?

I think it's going to be more of the same or, in fact, worse. You have that 300,000 number, but that doesn't even count the gotaways and the known gotaways, which typically that could be 60,000 to 70,000 a month. But I think people, when they're looking at this, they know once they get here, they get to stay. They also are going to know that there's an election coming up and things might change. I think the incentive is going to be tremendous for this year for people to come here. The cartels know it. The human smugglers know it. This year will be more of the same. This administration isn't planning on doing anything about it. There's plenty they can do, but they're unwilling to buck their party on this issue. You see all the problems in New York and Chicago, but they're going to remain and they'll try to make a political issue and say they're trying to do something about it with comprehensive immigration reform and these other things. But those really just amount to amnesty when you really break those things down with what they're actually seeking to have done.

Jonathan, you look at the hundreds of thousands of people just this month alone who basically surrendered themselves to customs and border protection. They walk up, they apply for asylum, they're released into the country, usually given a notice to appear now several years or a couple of years into the future. But what about those who circumvent any type of American authority on their way into the country? Is American law enforcement eventually tracking some people who get here? I mean, how open is this?

Yeah, that's a really good point. The people that don't come through the border, they're actually even better off under this administration's policy because nobody's tracking them. This administration has been quite clear. Being here illegally is not a basis to be removed. They will not remove them at all. The only scenario they'll be removed would be if they are convicted of a serious felony or somehow found to be a national security threat, which is going to be very rare. Those people that evade any reporting or anything really are going to live here as long as they want, assuming the political situation is the same and nobody's looking for them. They're not even... It's so extreme, the Democrats' position, they don't even want to deport criminals. We have these sanctuary cities. This administration could do something to crack down on that. They don't even address it or say anything negatively about it. People that are here are going to stay with this political environment.

Jonathan Fahey, the former ICE director. Jonathan, thanks so much. Anita. Thank you.

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