Washington, D.C. (March 11, 2021) – The Center for Immigration Studies provides analysis of the
latest numbers released by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection on “encounters” at the Southwest border. These numbers are on the same trajectory that they were at during the humanitarian and national-security disaster of
FY 2019, only the trend lines are higher this time around.
Andrew Arthur, the Center’s Resident Fellow in Law and Policy, said, “The February numbers are sky-high, and the Biden administration is in denial about the causes, blaming - among other things - two hurricanes from this past summer and '
coffee rust'. Unless President Biden recognizes the deficiencies in U.S. law that encourage illegal entry (an unlikely scenario), the border will quickly devolve into disaster, one to which 2019 will pale in comparison.”
In February, there were 100,441 CBP encounters at the Southwest border, up from 78,442 the month before. Of those encounters, most (96,974 or 96.5 percent) were aliens apprehended by Border Patrol after entering illegally. You have to go all the way back to
2006 to find a February in which Border Patrol apprehensions were that high.
Of course, in February 2006 (and up until
2011) most migrants apprehended by Border Patrol at the Southwest border were single adult males from Mexico. Border Patrol did not even publish statistics on unaccompanied alien children—UACs—until
2010, or on adult migrants with children—family units or FMUs—until
2013.
But, in February 19.5 percent of those apprehended were FMUs, and an astounding 9,297 (9.58 percent) were UACs, a 60% increase over January and a jump from the 3,070 apprehended in February of 2020.
View the full article: https://cis.org/Arthur/Border-Patrol-Apprehensions-Reach-14Year-High-Month-February
Border Patrol does not have the facilities to detain FMUs for any extended period of time (and thus usually releases them into the United States), and has to quickly hand non-Mexican UACs over to the Department of Health and Human Services under a
2008 law for placement with sponsors in the United States—
most of whom are here illegally.
That 2008 law encourages the family members of those UACs to pay to have them smuggled here to begin with, as I have explained many, many times
in the past.
In that vein, on
March 9, The New Yorker reported: “Biden is trying to expedite the process by having the government help pay the travel expenses involved in placing children with sponsors.”
That will simply increase the incentives for families to have their children smuggled to this country—endangering those children as Secretary Nielsen noted two years ago, and lining the pockets of the smugglers and the cartels they pay tribute to.
