President Trump is projected to oversee the largest flow of illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border since former President Bush’s administration, surpassing every year of crossings under former President Obama.
As Breitbart News reported, more than 76,000 border crossers attempted to enter the U.S. in the month of February — the most apprehensions of illegal border crossers and migrants in this month in 12 years.
While Trump’s administration expanded the Catch and Release program last month and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen focuses her attention on cybersecurity and terrorism issues, the U.S. is projected to see a level of illegal immigration this year that will surpass every year of illegal immigration under Obama.
Princeton Policy Advisors researcher Steven Kopits estimates that there will be about 775,000 illegal border crossings this year when the last month’s border data is analyzed. This would indicate that Trump’s overseeing of the crisis at the southern border would reach Bush era levels of mass illegal immigration when, in many years, more than illegal border crossings occurred in a single year.
In the past, Kopits has projected that there would be about 606,000 border crossings this year, the most illegal immigration since Fiscal Year 2008 when Bush was still in office.
Now, Kopits predicts illegal immigration to reach “a phenomenal pace of acceleration” at the southern border this year. The researcher also expects up to half a million border crossers will successfully enter the country through the border this year.
Should illegal immigration hit the level of 775,000 attempted border crossings this year, as Kopits projects, this would be nearly double what illegal immigration was in Obama’s last Fiscal Year.
Simultaneously, about 224,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) are resettled across the U.S. every half decade after arriving at the border. The resettlement policy, often used by MS-13 gang members, is expected to be exacerbated after Trump signed into law a quasi-amnesty for any illegal alien living in the same household with a UAC.
The vast majority of voters say a border wall would be effective in stopping illegal immigration, though that has not equated to progress on constructing new barriers at the border.
Only about 40 miles of replacement fencing have been built since Trump’s election, although about 124 miles of new wall and replacement fencing has been approved by Congress. This month, about 14 miles of new wall is expected to be constructed in southern California and some new portions of a wall have been constructed in the El Paso, Texas region.
Today, the majority of the U.S.-Mexico border remains open. At the same time, the U.S. has continued funding border walls and border security programs in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Lebanon.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.