More Migrants Deported than Apprehended at Border over Last 5 Months, Say Feds

During the past five months, federal law enforcement officials deported or repatriated approximately 14,000 more migrants than arrived at the U.S.-Mexico Border. CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said this illustrated the results of ending “Catch and Release.”

“In the past 5 months, since the president announced the end of ‘Catch and Release,’ approximately 14,000 more unlawful aliens were deported or returned than arrived at the southwest border,” DHS officials tweeted on Thursday.

Commissioner Morgan told reporters on Thursday that new policies put in place by the Trump Administration led to fewer asylum seekers being released into the interior of the United States.

“The last five months, the number of those we remove have outpaced the number of those we encounter at the Southwest border,” Morgan said. “We are applying a consequence or a removal pathway to 95 percent of those we encounter,” Morgan said. He went on to describe this as “the end of catch and release.”

Since the beginning of the current fiscal year (October 1, 2019), Border Patrol agents and CBP officers apprehended or classified as inadmissible 202,226 migrants. During that same period, immigration officers or CBP officers removed or repatriated 216,132 migrants. This resulted in a net outflow of 13,904.

The number of migrant crossings historically increase from January to February. In 2019, the number of migrant apprehensions increased by 30 percent. However, this year, the numbers only increased by about 1.3 percent (430 migrants).

“Because of our reforms, we are not positioning ourselves for another 2019,” DHS officials said in a written statement. “We’re averting it.

Officials said February 2020 was the 3rd best February in the past 21 years.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook or contact him at BPrice@Breitbart.com.