Did this actually happen though? Friends/family in e.g. Texas/California are unconvinced, and I don't think I ever saw any real data versus just scaremongering ("they're eating our cats and dogs").
The details are complicated, and higher numbers seem to come from the fact that usually _encounters_ are counted, in the wild and at ports of entry, which includes millions of people who were turned around, many of whom will have tried and been encountered multiple times.
The source is extremely comprehensive and deep, way beyond what I wrote above.
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/breaking-down-the-immigrat...
That being said, the HR bit that you also quoted from GP is a bad analogy. It should be clear that immigration is quite different than onboarding new hires, something a country literally built on immigration like the US is a testament to.
Edit: As someone is mentioning elsewhere in the thread, let's not forget that during the Biden admin there was a bipartisan immigration and border security bill, including many provisions previously demanded by the Republicans, that got rejected in a turnaround by the Republicans in the end in the election year.