REPORT: Monthly Migrant Encounters in December Exceed 300K for First Time

For the first time ever, migrant encounters along the southern border exceeded 300,000 in a single month, according to a report citing unofficial CBP sources. The report states December was the highest month in history for migrant encounters along the southwest border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, including Border Patrol agents and CBP OFO officer, encountered 302,000 migrants along the southwest border in December, according to an official source speaking with Fox News on Tuesday. The reported encounters set a new single-month record for CBP encounters and mark the first time this number has exceeded the 300,000-migrant threshold.

If the numbers reported by Fox News are accurate, this brings the first-quarter total number of encounters to more than 785,000 migrants.

The majority of the 302,000 reported migrant encounters in December were migrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the border between ports of entry. During the first 28 days of December, that number exceeded 232,000, Breitbart Texas reported.

RELATED ARTICLES:

• Released Migrants Overwhelm Texas Border Town on New Year’s Day
• Texas Border Sector Reports 22K Migrant Apprehensions in One Week
• Record-Shattering 232K Migrants Apprehended in December
• EXCLUSIVE: Migrants, Asylum Seekers Continue Using Airplanes to Reach Texas Border
• Texas Border Wide Open as Sector Shutters Stations for Catch and Release

The historic surge in migrant apprehensions is hitting the Del Rio and Tucson Sectors especially hard. During the first 21 days of December, Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin reported his sector apprehended nearly 74,000 migrant apprehensions. This represents the largest single-month total for the Tucson Sector since the last year of the Clinton administration, when agents encountered 76,245 in March 2020. In contrast, during FY20, President Donald Trump’s last full year in office, Tucson Sector agents apprehended only 66,076 migrants.

Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent John Bernal reported the apprehension of more than  22,000 migrants during the week before Christmas — plus another 1,600 known gotaways.

During the first two months of Fiscal Year 24, which began on October 1, Del Rio Sector agents apprehended 81,159 migrants who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry. This represents an apprehension rate of approximately 1,330 migrants per day. The daily apprehension rate in December appears to be in the 2,500 to 3,000 migrants range.

On New Year’s Day, overcrowded NGO shelters and Border Patrol processing centers forced federal officials to release busloads of migrants directly onto the streets of Eagle Pass, Breitbart’s Randy Clark reported. “Most of the migrants huddled outside a local transportation company, hoping to make a quick exit from the small border city,” Clark wrote.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will report official numbers for December in mid-January.