Three in four illegal immigrant juveniles from Mexico who are apprehended at the border are repeat offenders.
According to a Pew Research Center report, which was based on “analysis of Mexican government data obtained from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” there have been over 11,000 illegal immigrant juveniles from Mexico who have been apprehended from October of last year to May 31. The report found that 76% of them were caught for at least the second time and a whopping 15% of the juveniles “had been apprehended at least six times” before trying to cross the border. About 97% of illegal immigrant juveniles “apprehended from Mexico this fiscal year were teenagers, compared with 80% from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.”
Because of “these multiple apprehensions, the total number of Mexican children caught at the border is lower than apprehension statistics show.” In addition, “the lack of fingerprinting by Mexican authorities makes it difficult to estimate an actual number of children crossing the border,” according to Pew.
Texas state Senator Dan Patrick said that somewhere between one in five and one in ten illegal immigrants are actually caught, so many more illegal immigrants from Mexico may have entered the country undetected. Unlike illegal immigrants from Central American nations, those from Mexico can be immediately sent back. As the Pew Research report found, “95% of unaccompanied children from Mexico were returned almost immediately after their apprehension during the last fiscal year.”
There have been nearly 60,000 illegal immigrant juveniles that have been apprehended since October of last year, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has demanded legislation that would make it more difficult for even illegal immigrants from Mexico to be deported.