Over 3,500 Chinese nationals were encountered crossing the southern border illegally in May, along with hundreds of Jordanian, Turkish and Mauritanian nationals, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources who spoke to Fox News.

The vast majority (98%) were encountered in the San Diego Sector, which has emerged as a top border-crossing point, even as numbers across the border have decreased in recent months. 

While the Tucson Sector in Arizona saw the most encounters, with over 33,000 illegal encounters, San Diego was a close second with over 32,000.

MAYORKAS SAYS SOME MIGRANTS ‘TRY TO GAME’ ASYLUM SYSTEM, AS BORDER CRISIS REMAINS TOP POLITICAL ISSUE

In the San Diego sector, there were over 770 Jordanians, more than 670 Turkish, and over 500 Mauritanian nationals recorded crossing illegally in the sector in May, giving a glimpse into the global nature of the U.S. migrant crisis, which has expanded beyond the Western Hemisphere.

The influx of Jordanian nationals was put in the spotlight last month when two people from Jordan were arrested for attempting to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. One of those nationals had crossed into the U.S. illegally in April and had then been released into the interior of the U.S.

The number of Chinese nationals has increased enormously since 2021. There were 1,970 encounters in FY 2022 and over 24,000 in FY 2023, and so far there have been over 24,200 encounters so far this fiscal year.

Fox News is told that approximately 118,000 migrants crossed the U.S. illegally and were apprehended by Border Patrol in May. Over 6,300 of those were “special interest aliens” coming from countries with potential national security concerns. 

The ongoing crisis at the border threatens to be a major issue for President Biden’s re-election campaign. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said recently that some migrants crossing the southern border “try to game” the U.S. asylum system – a hardening of rhetoric as the crisis at the border remains a top political issue going into the November presidential election.

Migrants arrive at a makeshift camp after crossing the nearby border with Mexico near the Jacumba Hot Springs on February 23, 2024, in San Diego, California. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)

SPIKE IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM THIS US ADVERSARY BLOWS LID OFF PREVIOUS YEAR’S RECORD 

“The reality is that some people do indeed try to game the system,” Mayorkas told CBS News. “That does not speak to everyone whom we encounter, but there is an element of it, and we deal with it accordingly.”

The administration has demanded reform from Congress, including the bipartisan Senate bill. It has also pointed to 720,000 removals or returns of illegal immigrants since May 2023, more than in every full fiscal year since 2011.  

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

Mayorkas said in the interview that a recent bipartisan border security proposal, which has failed to pick up support in the Senate, “would have equipped us with more tools to deal with those individuals who seek to game the system.”

Republicans have blamed the policies of the administration, including the rollback of Trump-era policies such as wall construction, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and increased interior enforcement. They have passed their own legislation in the House that would significantly limit asylum claims and restart border wall construction and similar measures. It has not yet been taken up by the Senate.

When Donald Trump’s Thursday morning started with a former producer of “The Apprentice” accusing him of using a racist slur to describe a Black contestant, the former president didn’t know that was going to be the best news of his day.

That afternoon, a jury of his peers handed down a 34-count conviction. Quite the bookends for a man who a year ago was also found liable for sexual assault and defamation by a jury. In 2022, two of his companies were convicted of fraud.

As if all that weren’t enough reason to be concerned about the corruption a potential second Trump term could bring, there are now reports that the former president is buddying up with Elon Musk. In fact, Trump is said to be considering adding Musk as an advisor if he wins in November.

Imagine: one of the richest men in the world joining forces with a convicted felon running for president. It’s the kind of pairing Ian Fleming would have appreciated. A duo of villains worthy of Bond.

Musk wants to put a computer chip in your brain, and Trump said he wants to be a dictator for a day. Musk prevented Ukraine from using Starlink internet services in its fight against Russia. Trump admires Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he would encourage Russia to attack NATO countries.

Musk grew up affluent in apartheid South Africa and today speaks ill of diversity efforts in the workplace.

According to Trump’s niece Mary, racist slurs like Trump is accused of using on set were common in the Trump household. Antisemitic slurs as well, which probably explains why Trump said that white nationalists — the ones carrying torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us” — were “very fine people.”

That was 2017, back when Trump was calling himself the “law and order” president. I’m pretty sure his supporters didn’t take that to mean that he and many of the people he brought with him to the White House — Paul Manafort, Stephen K. Bannon, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone — would be facing jail time.

But then again, if Republicans really cared about “law and order,” Trump never would have made it to the Republican debate stage back in 2015. He and his businesses had already been involved in thousands of lawsuits. In fact, when Trump initially announced his candidacy, he was concurrently dealing with a class action suit filed against Trump University. (Alleging fraud, in case you were wondering.)

Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who after the verdict on Thursday said “today is a shameful day in American history,” can try to characterize the hush money trial as “the weaponization of our justice system,” but the reality is Trump has been in trouble with our legal system since Johnson was in diapers. I’m not joking. The saga began in 1973 with the Nixon administration. By now, Trump’s been involved in 4,095 lawsuits and counting.

He is not a victim being unfairly targeted by Democrats.

Trump is a con artist who keeps getting caught.

When he first ran for president, he told supporters not to worry about his lack of political experience because his business pedigree qualified him for the job. And then we found out that his companies had been cooking the books for decades and that Trump’s father repeatedly bailed him out of bad financial decisions. No shame in having help, unless you’ve been claiming to be self-made and successful.

And many believed his boasts, even though he became a millionaire at the age of 8, not through shrewd deals but because of his family’s wealth.

The guilty verdict on Thursday marked the first time a former president has been convicted of a felony. That is indeed historic.

However, Trump himself being found guilty in a court of law should not surprise anyone.

Especially not in New York, where Trump grew up, made his name, made his money and had most of his run-ins with the law.

Perhaps in 2016, because of his charisma and celebrity, it was easy to overlook just how corrupt Trump was. Now, his corruption is hard to avoid.

None of this is to suggest he can’t still win the White House. However, this time around, there is no plausible pretense of “draining the swamp” or “making America great.”

No, this time around voters know Trump is a criminal. Now we’ve got the receipts.

@LZGranderson

President Biden said on Friday that the justice system “should be respected” and that it was “reckless” for former President Donald Trump to claim that the verdict in his New York trial was “rigged,” just days after he told his supporters the Supreme Court could not “stop” him from carrying out his agenda.

“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said in response to the former president’s remarks about the NY v. Trump verdict, which found Trump guilty Thursday on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.

“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America. Our justice system, that justice should be respected. And we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that,” Biden added.

TRUMP TURNS CONVICTION INTO CASH, SPOTLIGHTS RECORD FUNDRAISING IN WAKE OF GUILTY VERDICT

Biden’s remarks came just two days after he bragged to his supporters at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that the Supreme Court ruling his student debt relief plan was unconstitutional did not “stop” him from canceling student loans.

“The Supreme Court blocked me from relieving student debt, but they didn’t stop me,” Biden said Wednesday from Girard College.

Biden, like several other Democrat and Republican presidents throughout history, has taken aim at the Supreme Court for a number of rulings they have made during his tenure in the White House.

During his State of the Union address in March, Biden took direct aim at the justices and insisted they had underestimated the “electoral and political power” of women in their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. During an interview with MSNBC about his remarks directed at the justices, Biden said, “Look, I think they made a wrong decision, think they read the Constitution wrong, I think they made a mistake.”

Biden made similar comments on how the high court’s ruling “didn’t stop” him from canceling student loans in February while speaking at the Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, California.

BLACK VOTERS CRITICIZE BIDEN FOR ‘PANDERING’ AS SUPPORT SHIFTS TO TRUMP: ‘IT’S INSULTING’

The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said at the time. “Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled in debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that federal law does not allow Biden’s Secretary of Education to cancel more than $430 billion in student loan debt. Biden promised at the time that his administration would continue to push for his student debt relief plan.

Shortly after the court’s ruling, Biden said: “I think the court misinterpreted the Constitution.”

Earlier this year, Biden announced the Savings on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan that cancels debt for enrolled borrowers who have been in repayment for at least 10 years and hold $12,000 or less in student loan debt. Those with larger debts will receive relief after an additional year of payments for every additional $1,000 they borrowed.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said: “Expressing disagreement with a Supreme Court decision – as all Presidents do – is not the same as attacking the rule of law and undermining our judicial system.”

Following the verdict in Trump’s trial, Biden took to social media on Friday to claim, “No one is above the law.”

President Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 31, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

He has also used Trump’s remarks to raise funds for his re-election campaign, claiming in another post on X that Trump “questioned our judicial system.”

“Donald Trump is threatening our democracy. First, he questioned our election system. Then, he questioned our judicial system,” Biden wrote Friday.

Biden said Friday that Trump, who is the first president to be convicted of a felony, will “be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal” the conviction.

Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.